Phases of Accidia
by SushiBomb
Summary: A collection of one-shots centered around everyone's favorite knife-chucking, crooked tiara wearing prince! Range from childhood to TYL. Pairings, if any, vary by chapter. Rated for language, themes, and Varia-ness. Chapter 12 now up!
1. Cupcake

A/N: Hello and Welcome to Phases of Accidia, my little collection of one-shots revolving around everyone's favorite knife-chucking prince! There's no set order, and some occur in both the present and future. No pairings really, but if you squint, maaaaaybe.

This is officially my first post on FFN. I just had to post something because I adore the Varia to pieces, especially Bel! Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman Reborn is owned by Akira Amano. I'm just a humble college student with crappy laptop writing for fun.

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I. Cupcake Hair

"Voi! Where's the prince brat?" Squalo shouted down the unneccessarily long dining table, glaring at the small baby perched on a stack of phone books. Mammon glanced over at Belphegor's empty seat to the left of him briefly before returning to his money.

"Good grief, its not like I'm not his mother or anything. I don't know where he is." The little Arcobaleno said as he continued to count his wad of bills. Lussuria came bounding out of the kitchen with the last plate of pancakes. The frilly pink apron he insisted on wearing earned him a look of digust from everyone at the table, minus Xanxus, who ignored him in favor of his heap of bacon strips and waffles.

"Oh my~," the flamboyant man started, "What if he's under the weather? Someone should go check on him~!" Lussuria, ever the doting mother, let his shaded eyes meander over to the door that led out into the main hall, waiting for the blond prince to pop in through the tall oak doors any second.

"Who cares! The damn kid probably slept in or something, its not a big deal-"Levi's unimportant rant was immediately silenced as the last member of the squad came traipsing through one of the imposing doors. The ever present grin on his pale face was impossibly wide. Everyone just stared. Five sets of eyes followed the young prince as he plopped inelegantly into his seat next to Mammon and reached for the apple juice carafe. After several awkward seconds, the prince noticed everyone's incredulous stares.

"What?" Belphegor asked, suspiciously innocent, the edges of that grin curling upward even more.

"Bel-" Mammon started.

"Brat." Levi stared.

"…." Xanxus ignored.

" VOI! What the fuck did you do to your fuckin' hair?" Squalo stomped over to Belphegor. The normally blonde head tilted up to face the shark. The fourteen year old prince ran his pale, wiry fingers through his once golden, now ultrabright, shockingly pink, hair.

"Shishi~, doesn't the prince look pretty?" At that Xanxus glared at the young preteen.

"You look like a damn cupcake." Xanxus stated sourly, but the slasher prince was unfazed. In all honesty, he really did look like a frosting covered confection, his previously flaxen hair a mass of swirls of hot pink, with the odd pastel and white strands mixed in. Which was exactly what he wanted. Instead, he opted to admire his new hair in one of the large mirrors that hung in the dining hall.

Lussuria was beside himself. "OMG~! Where on Earth did you get you hair done? You simply must tell me! You look adorable!" Belphegor accepted the praise haughtily.

"Of course it looks good, I'm a prince!"

As the two conversed over Bel's new found hair salon in the fashion district over in southern Milan, Squalo hovered over the prince, fingering the pink tresses with something akin to horror. Belphegor shook his head free from the probing hands.

"Get your dirty peasant hands off of the prince's hair." Squalo's face went from slightly revolted to livid in .0003 seconds. The shark began to curse and rage about his unparalleled hygiene in the background as Belphegor and Lussuria continued their small talk.

"Yea, they did it just how the prince said to. Shishi~, looks good, huh?"

"You look ridiculous! Go take that shit out!" Squalo thundered at the adolescent royal.

"But Lussuria has a green Mohawk, why can't I have pink hair?" the prince pouted.

"Yea, well," he struggled to find a reason, "Lussuria is… Lussuria. So it's okay. Plus he's older. You're just a little runt." At that the prince looked incensed.

"You guys aren't that much older than me. Plus, you're a pauper. You can't tell a prince what to do! Ushishi~!" That trademark grin was snaking its way back onto his face. Squalo sputtered.

"VOIII! I don't wanna be seen in public with a kid who looks like a motherfuckin' vanilla cupcake!"

"Bet you'd like a taste of this cupcake…," Bel whispered in a suggestive tone, waggling his tongue at Squalo pervertedly.

Silence. Then…

"WHAAAAAT THE FUCK!"

"It was too easy…shishi~!" Belphegor burst into a fit of giggles at the white-haired swordsman's flushing cheeks.

"You walked right into that one, Squalo." Mammon indolently pointed out, earning him a frigid glare from the man in question.

"Besides, no one looks girlier than you! If you can have that long hair, I can have my hair whatever color I want!"

"But my hair doesn't look stupid like yours does." Squalo ground out in his peaking agitation.

The assassin prince scoffed.

"Don't be jealous because the prince's cupcake hair is prettier than Squ-chan's scraggly old lady hair." The table was immediately silent. Even Xanxus had to stop mid-bite. He had to see this.

If there was anything Squalo absolutely valued above all else on this Earth, it was the long white tresses that cascaded down to the small of his back. He took great pride in maintaining his hair, almost as much as he took pride in his skills as a swordsman. This was the ultimate blow.

"S-scraggly?" The shark was seeing red. He roared and proceeded to have tantrum, until Xanxus clocked him right in the face with his glass of orange juice. A low "fuckin' can it, trash," was heard in the midst of all the cursing and VOIIII-ing. The young princejust sat, grinning that shit-eating grin of his, and happily returned to his pancakes, all the while twirling the hot pink tresses around his index finger.

"Ushishishi. Pretty pretty prince.I am the cupcake prince!"

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Christ on a cracker! Posting on this website is a pain in the ass! I had this story posted up yesterday, and I had to make some corrections, and for that I had to delete the whole story, and then re-post it! Aggravation! But anyway, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I'll repost the next one in about a day or two, I guess.

Thanks for reading! Reviews are love 3


	2. A Tiara for MiniBel

A/N: OMG second chapter! Read it mofos!

Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman Reborn is owned by Akira Amano. I'm just a humble college student with crappy laptop writing for fun.

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II. A tiara for Mini-Bel

Mammon was settled on top of his way over-sized bed, doing what he loves most. The little Arcobaleno efficiently segregated this month's earnings into neat piles of hundreds, fifties, and twenties, respectively. No pocket change here. A ghost of a contented smile passed over the deceptively cherubic face. He hadn't felt this peaceful in a long while. After the ring battles, the Varia returned to Italy, still embarrassed over their defeat at the hands of Vongola Decimo and his pack of misfits. But they were getting over it.

Mammon snuggled into the masses of pillows that littered the giant bed. Unrolling a new wad of crisp hundred dollar bills, the avaricious baby began to count. He licked his tiny thumb and sifted through the notes.

"1, 2, 3, 4 ,5, 6,-" "MAMMY!" The peace was shattered as the resident prince of the Varia sauntered into the room, without knocking of course, because princes don't _have_ to knock. Mammon sighed to himself. _Well, I _was_ having a good day. _He thought sullenly.

"Yes Bel, what is it?" The arcobaleno turned his small head to Belphegor, who had the mother of all Cheshire grins on his handsome face. The now seventeen year old assassin threw himself over the carefully stacked notes, effectively disorganizing them, much to Mammon's immense vexation. If the infant didn't know better, he'd say that the self-absorbed teen did that on purpose.

"Ushishi. The prince has something to show you!" That smile threatened to split his face. And secretly, Mammon kinda hoped it would. Death by excessive glee. It was laughable. On the outside,however, the arcobaleno's face remained wholely apathetic and uninterested. Motioning toward the now ruined stacks, the arcobaleno said, "Kindly remove your royal ass from off of my money." The baby began to crawl around the bed, collecting some scattered bills.

"But Mamma-jamma, its soo coooool." The prince droned on excitedly. At that, Mammon shivered involuntarily. Whenever Belphegor wanted to show him something "cool," it usually involved something dead, and/or in the process of dying, and him getting injured and/ or yelled at/threatened by another of their team.

"First of all, don't ever call me that again. Second, does it have to do with you killing small animals?"

"No…guess again!"

"Bel ,I'm busy. Show me later." Mammon renestled himself amongst the goose feather pillows, just as Belphegor shot up and started to crawl over to him.

"I can't wait 'til later! The prince orders you to look now!" The little hooded head reluctantly glanced up. Whatever he had to show him so badly had better be important. Because if Belphegor continued to besiege him with his childish demands for nothing but his own amusment, the prince was going to be seeing his dead brother in every reflective surface in the castle for a month. Said prince stood up, hands at his belt, undoing first the buckle, then the buttons and finally the zipper of his plain black jeans.

"Bel…What are you- GOOD. FUCKING. GRIEF." For the record, that was the first and last time Mammon ever dropped the F-Bomb. Completely nude from the waist down, Belphegor stood proudly in front of Mammon. Adorning the tip of his…ah…royal scepter, was a shiny silver loop, little gems embedded in the metal balls at each end gleaming in the light.

"Ushishishishi…Mini-Bel has his own tiara now!" Bel scooted closer to Mammon, who immediately inched further into his pillows.

"Look Mammon!" The mist arcobaleno was a red as a tomato.

"I'd rather not." But despite himself, he couldn't _not_ look, especially with the way Bel was jingling it around obscenely, laughing like the perverted kid at the playground that liked to show girls(and apparently boys too) his thingy. _Which he probably was_, Mammon speculated.

"Bel! Put your penis away…Jesus Christ…" Mammon muttered to himself, pinching the bridge of his tiny nose as Belphegor tucked in 'mini-Bel', who actually wasn't so mini, back into his pants and sat down. Again, right on top of the baby illusionist's only joy in life.

"So, whaddya think?" The prince grinned right in Mammon's little face. The baby leveled him with a glare, not that Bel could tell, of course, since Mammon's eyes were shadowed by the hood he always wore.

"You know, I could have gone my whole life without seeing that." Unfortunately, the sarcasm was lost on the jubilant prince, though his trademark smile shrank somewhat.

"You don't like it?" Mammon gave him a dirty look.

"That is freakish. Are you going to turn into a human pincushion, like Levi?" Casting his beloved money aside, as it was clearly not going to be counted today, the mist arcobaleno looked over at Belphegor. The prince appeared to be in deep thought, a pensive finger on his chin and all.

"But Levi is ugly. The prince is sexy!~" Was the profound answer. With that, the blond prince all but skipped out of the room, presumably to disgust someone else with his mutiliated genitalia. Mammon slowly curled into fetal position on top of one of the pillows. What he wouldn't give for mindswab. He had a feeling his headache was suddenly going to get much worse.

From somwhere in the castle, gunshots were heard.

The mist guardian of the varia facepalmed. Did he _really_ just show it to Xanxus?

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Thanks for reading! Review or Bel will come to your house at night and flash you with Mini-Bel and his pretty tiara!


	3. Of Gelato and Mental Torture

A/N: Yo! Welcome to the third installment of my little collection, Phases of Accidia.

First, I wanna say thanks to everyone who reviewed, I love your feedback! I am flattered to hear that my fanfic has been deemed "Varia Quality!" Second, this chapter came completely out of no where. I was driving to work yesterday, and this one scene popped into my head and I almost died laughing. This little one-shot was spawned completely out of my desire to type that one single scene. If you can guess which one, I'll give you a cookie!

That said, the characters are bit OOC in this one, mostly towards the end, and to be honest, I'm not sure when exactly Fran joins the Varia, but we know it's during some point in the ten years since the ring battles. Anyway, read it and enjoy!

Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman Reborn belongs to Akira Amano. I'm just a humble college student with a crappy laptop writing for fun.

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III. Of Gelato and Mental Torture

"Squalo~…" Belphegor.

"Long-haired commander." Fran.

"…." Squalo stared straight ahead, clenching his teeth, trying to focus on the afternoon news.

"Shishi~! Yo, Squ-chan!" Belphegor again.

"Idiot commander." Back to Fran.

"Squ-squ! Stop ignoring us!" Belphegor began to poke Squalo in the side of the head. The sword emperor growled low in his throat. _Maybe If I ignore them with all of my will, somehow they'll get the goddamn message and leave me the fuck alone._ He thought irately to himself.

"Oi! Ugly old lady!" No such luck.

"Grandma Squalo, we want Gelato." Wait, Grand-_ma_? Squalo felt his eye twitch rapidly.

Poke. Pokepokepokepoke. Belphegor from the left.

.Poke. Fran from the right.

"Squalo! The prince orders you to take me and the stupid frog to get gelato. Ushishi~" Bel grinned while he and Fran continued their savage poke attack on the Varia commander's poor skull. The two youngest members of the assassination squad flanked him on either side of the couch, effectively distracting him from watching the latest news.

"Idiot long-haired commander…gelato…" Fran droned.

Squalo was determined to ignore them. Unfortunately, the universe was not on his side today.

"Squ-chan, if you don't take us, I'm going to switch all of your shampoos with-"

The Varia strategist snapped.

"VOIIIIII! WHAT THE FUCK? LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE! DON'T YOU ASSCLOWNS KNOW HOW TO FUCKIN' DRIVE? GO BY YOUR DAMN SELVES!" Squalo was hyperventilating angrily. Of course, Fran had to comment.

"Commander, you should calm down. All that rage is going to make your blood pressure go up." Squalo almost started breathing fire. Belphegor laughed.

"Come on, Squ-chan! Take us to get gelato! The prince has been craving it all week!" Bel prodded again. The shark looked at the two quizzically.

"Voi…Why do you need me to take you? Seriously, can't either of you fuckers drive?" Squalo reasoned back irately. They were both in their twenties for fuck's sake. How could neither of them drive? Anyhow, he had already missed the weather report, which was what he really wanted to see, so now he had nothing better to do than hear these two out.

"Well?"

Belphegor and Fran glanced at each other, and then back to the waiting rain guardian.

"We're not allowed." They said in unison. Two thin silver eyebrows rose skeptically.

"Not allowed? Why the hell not?" Fran scratched his neck, (almost) looking sheepish and sighed as he began his unreasonably lengthy explanation about how he had taken one of the Varia's many 'toys', a sleek white BMW M3 coupe, if his memory served him well , out for a spin. He had taken an immediate liking to the car, and as such, affectionately labeled it his 'baby.'

Not many knew this, aside from the core Varia members of course, but Fran was a closet adrenaline junkie, and a notorious speeder. Lussuria had found that out the hard way, when he once went on assignment with the green-haired illusionist. He had come back with his Mohawk thoroughly decimated and frizzed out, and was muttering something along the lines of 'slow d-down,' shaking like a chihuahua.

"Tch..." Was all Squalo could say. How could he forget that? He had been the one to pick up the young illusionist from jail the next day. Who knew flying down the highway at 136 miles an hour would land you in jail? Apparently a certain apathetic froggy didn't. Fran had had his license for a grand total of three and a half months, just shy of his 21st birthday, before getting it suspended until the following year. He sighed in near resignation as he looked over at the blond prince, who smirked back.

Did he even _dare_ ask why the slasher wasn't allowed?

"What's your excuse blondie?" Squalo rested his chin in his hand as he scrutinized Belphegor, who had planted himself on the couch beside him.

"Bel-sempai has no regard for traffic safety." Fran quipped up. Belphegor immediately stabbed him in the arm.

"Shut it toad! I wanna tell him!"

As such, it was Belphegor's turn to launch into an equally long recant of the "Greatest Joy Ride in Traffic Violation History" as he dubbed it. He had sped through eleven red lights in a row, causing three separate accidents, almost hit a pedestrian, ran an old couple in a beat up old Fiat off the freeway, cut off a bus full of children (forcing the bus driver to slam on the brakes, resulting in an improbably high number of bruises and broken noses), bypassed two separate tolls, all in the span of about fifteen minutes ("Ushishi~ it was fun!") and, when he was eventually pulled over, he gave the officers his typical excuse. "I'm a prince. I'm allowed to drive like an asshole. It was everybody else's fault for being in the way."

Needless to say, Belphegor got the royal treatment, alright. A few days in jail, a revoked license, and enough fines to finance the immergence of a third world country. Not to mention his gorgeous Black Ferrari convertible was impounded indefinitely. Plus, on top of the 17284356075 tickets he already received, one the officers gave him another ticket for being a dumbass, and having the balls to think an excuse like that would actually work.

When Squalo gave him an incredulous look, Bel simply said, "It's true! He gave me another ticket because he was affronted by my audacity. Shishi~!" Fran gave the plucky blonde a sideways stare/glare.

"So anyway, yea. Me and Speed Racer over here (stab "Look who's talking!" stab) can't drive. Could you take us?" Fran asked, yanking knives out of his frog hat.

Squalo sighed again, dragging his open palm down his handsome face in defeat. They weren't going to leave him alone until he took them. Well, he hadn't had gelato in a while, so why not?

"Fine." Hopefully he wouldn't regret this.

And since when did members of the mafia have _any_ regard for the law, anyway?

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'Mama Antonella's Casa di Gelati 'was famous all over Europe. The little hole-in-the-wall shop boasted the largest selection of flavors of any gelato shop in Italy, from chocolate to watermelon, cotton candy to prune, and was so rich and fresh that epicureans traveled from all over the country to partake in the cold, sugary treat. A certain trio of hitmen were not among those so lucky.

Squalo grit his teeth in irritation as he patted himself down for what had to be at least the third or fourth time. He had forgotten his bloody wallet. And to add insult to injury, now that he was in front of the shop, he spotted the tub of cherry gelato inside, practically radiating a holy aura, almost as if to mock Squalo and his everlasting misfortune. He turned to the other two members of his party glumly.

"Voi! I forgot my fuckin wallet! Can one of you two cover for me?"

"I don't have any money." Fran said as he stared down the coconut gelato with something along the lines of longing.

"The prince thought you were gonna pay. I didn't bring my wallet either." Belphegor glowered at the swordsman, million watt grin wiped off of his face for once.

"WHAT? When the fuck did I say I was gonna pay? You only asked if I could drive you here! VOIII!" Squalo nearly tore out his hair in rage. "Uh duh, when the prince says to take him somewhere, that means you pay too. Che. Stupid peasant."

At that, Squalo almost had a seizure.

Belphegor ignored the shark's wrath-induced convulsions and tried to think up a solution to their little dilemma. He crossed his arms and stared hard at the brick walkway. Squalo could practically hear the rusty gears turning somewhere under that mass of gold.

After another minute, Belphegor gave a firm nod of his head.

" I got it." When Squalo looked at him expectantly,Belphegor smirked maliciously.

"Let's just take it. Ushishi, we're motherfucking hitmen! What're they gonna say, no?" Squalo gave him a look.

"Yea, but stealing some fuckin' gelato seems kinda pathetic, don't you think?" Squalo argued back. Bel's shoulders sagged a bit in admittance. The thought of three grown men having to steal ice cream did seem pretty lame. The two thought some more.

"You think Mama Antonella would put it on a tab? I mean we are the Varia. That's gotta count for something, right? " Was the shark's idea. Bel readily answered, "Hell no. That old bitch is almost as greedy as Mammon. You could be God and she would still charge you."

"Hmm..true that."

"Ushishishi, we can always whore out Fran…I'll bet he's worth a few euros." At that, the mist guardian stared pointedly at Belphegor. The royal assassin suddenly started to claw at his face and neck.

"GET THEM OFF OF ME!GET THEM OFF!" But Squalo was too busy laughing his ass off to be of any assistance. As Bel staggered about clutching his head, yelling unintelligibly about 'scarabs' eating 'the princes perfect face and brain' (effectively gaining the attention of the whole street), Fran nonchalantly began to stroll over. He accidently bumped into an older gentleman on the way. The man, who appeared to be very wealthy, sniffed in disdain at the green hair and large frog hat. How dare this little hoodlum crash into him like that?

Fran just offered a polite 'excuse me' to the cranky man, and came to stand over by Squalo. When the man was out of hearing range, Fran leaned in slightly and asked, "Hey, stupid long-haired commander, what flavor gelato do you think the fake prince likes?" He offered up, still watching the man's retreating back.

"It doesn't matter, we don't have any mon-" Squalo's mouth hung slightly ajar as Fran produced the quite expensive looking designer wallet he had 'lifted' from the nice man. A ghost of a smirk graced his lips.

"Don't worry, it's my treat."

Squalo smirked toothily.

"In that case, I think Bel likes chocolate."

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After finally procuring their gelato, (and Belphegor attempting to disembowel Fran for using such a dirty illusion on him), the three drove in relative silence back to the Varia headquarters.

"That was pretty fuckin' slick, you used to pick pockets or something, eh, runt?" the Varia second in command glanced over at the youngest member of their group. Fran's lips curled into an almost imperceptible smile.

"Yeah. Before Master took me as a student, I lived on the streets. You learn a lot of neat tricks when your life depends on it." As Fran turned back to the window, Squalo took this in, nodding silently. He chanced a peek in the rear view mirror at the last of their little triad.

Belphegor sat in the back, looking for all the world like the spoiled prince he was. Arms crossed, lithe body sunken in to the cushion of the back seat, a nasty bruise forming on his usually unblemished forehead. His general aura was absolutely murderous at having been made a fool of. He would occasionally turn to glare daggers at Fran, who opted to ignore the prince's sub zero gaze and watch the sun setting over the Italian countryside.

He would have thrown real daggers of course, were it not for the fact that Squalo had explicitly told him, with his sword at his throat, that if he so much as grazed the caramel leather interior of his Maserati with one of his 'shitty little knives', there would be one less homicidal prince in the Vongola's employ. So, the moody prince settled for throwing them mentally.

Despite a slight throbbing in his temple, Squalo's mood was actually fairly pleasant for once. He reclined a bit in the warm seat as he merged onto the freeway that would take them home.

_We should go out for gelato more often_, Squalo thought to himself, before getting another good guffaw at the thought of Belphegor pounding his head into a tree, begging someone to help him kill the beetles that were sucking out his spinal fluid.

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Oya Oya, I think that was the longest one-shot I've ever written in my life! I won't be surprised if I get arthritis pain soon! -sob-

Anywho, thanks for reading! As always review are love, or Bel will run you the fuck over!


	4. Sexy Legs

Hot Damn its Chapter Four! If you don't already know, this is Phases of Accidia, my little collection of one-shots for the Slasher Prince himself!

First things first, it has been brought to my attention by my new internet BFF Mr. Skye-tan that my last chapter was actually more centered on Fran and Squalo. My answer: Holy crap, I didn't even notice! Bel _was_ supposed to be the main focus, but my desire to rape Fran came right through lol Sorry, I'll try to be more aware of that in the future, but I know it'll happen again cause I love all the Varia guys ('cept Levi because he's a hairy twat). Ahem, so in closing, Phases of Accidia willl be MOSTLY centered on Bel, with random appearances by everyone else. Phew, I think that covered me for now.

P.S. –You totally got the cookie Mr. Skye-tan. *wink*

Blahblah…what else did I need to say? Oh yeah, for this chapter…Pervy Bel is pervy and Levi questions his sexuality. Yep. So I guess that's one-sided Bel x Levi (EWWW. Those two names should never have an 'x' between them in any context but humorous ones!)

Okay I'm done babbling. P.O.A. or DIE~!

Disclaimer: Katekyo Hitman Reborn is owned by Akira Amano. I'm just a humble college student with crappy laptop writing for fun.

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IV. Sexy Legs

Levi was sitting alone in the upstairs lounge in the northern wing of the Varia Headquarters, humming contentedly. It was nice to have the place to himself for once. Everyone else, he assumed, was either out on assignment, running errands, or was just generally absent from the base. With his arms resting along the back of the sofa and remote in hand, he turned on the 42" plasma screen, flipping idly through the channels, until finally settling on the Discovery Channel. It was a program about the social complexities of dolphins.

"_Aside from humans, dolphins are the only other mammals that have sex for social reasons, this is to maintain a close bond-"_

At that moment, the heavy wooden door to the lounge was opened, and Belphegor strolled in leisurely, usual smile plastered to his face. Levi groaned. _So much for my peaceful day_. The large man turned to tell the royal to kindly get lost, and his jaw hit the floor. Belphegor was patting his slightly damp hair with a fluffy black towel hanging around his neck. But that wasn't what caught the lightning wielder's attention.

It was the fact that Bel was wearing his baggy striped shirt and thigh high leather boots that came with his Varia uniform. _Only_ his shirt and boots. As the svelt blonde curled up on the chaise a few feet away, Levi looked ready to have an aneurysm. Bel took no notice of his teammate's fairly obvious discomfort.

"B-Bel, why aren't you wearing pants?" Levi stuttered. The man in question lethargically rolled his head to the side to glance over upon hearing Levi's raised voice.

"Because I'm a prince," he began in his blasé manner, "I don't have to wear pants." With that he turned back to the TV. He clicked his teeth at the boring selection.

"Shishi, hey ugly Levi, pass the remote here. The prince wants to watch TV." Belphegor said as he sat up on his knees to crawl over to were Levi was, presumably to steal the remote away. The remote was the last thing on the lightning guardian's mind though. As Bel shifted over his prone form to pluck the device from his hand, Levi caught a glimpse of the prince's rather feminine undergarments, not to mention his pale, sinewy thighs. Levi thought for a fleeting moment of how well the purple bikini style panties suited the younger hitman. Bel didn't really seem like a boxers kind of guy anyway.

At least he wasn't free-balling.

Remote in hand, Bel cast a quick look at Levi. He looked weird. Well, weirder than usual. It was then he noticed the roving eyes and slowly flushing cheeks, and just _where_ Levi was looking and quickly put two and two together. His lips curled mischievously. The blonde assassin huddled over to were he was sitting before, making sure to give Levi a nice view his cotton- clad masterpiece of a posterior (If the prince did say so himself). The strangled grunt did not go unnoticed. Bel's smirk grew wider.

"So Levi, how was your day today?" Belphegor attempted to instigate some small talk, namely so he could observe his unwitting prey. Levi was understanably silent. So the prince continued on.

"The mission today was soooo bloody! You wouldn't believe how _dirty _the prince got!" Bel snuck a sly glance over to the bumbling man on his right. Mind-Bel was dying of laughter. He was totally bullshitting! He had been sleeping all day. But nonetheless, "I was a bad little prince! Ushishi! Those other hitmen got what-" Bel prattled on about stabbing someone, but all Levi could do was watch the storm guardian's wiry hand, as Bel ghosted his fingers over his thighs.

"One of those assholes hit me right here," he pouted as he poked a spot obscenely close to his…it was all Levi could do to not stare at that intricate tattoo of a skull wearing a crown on the inside of Belphegor's left thigh. Meanwhile, the prince continued to massage his apparently 'bruised' extremity. A sigh escaped his lips. A whimper broke from Levi's.

"I'm so glad I got back quick, the prince needed a shower so badly…" Bel let his words hang in the air, as he continued to lightly run his fingertips over the insides of his thighs. He licked his lips. _Damn I'm a sexy motherfucker_, _shishi~!_ He thought to himself vainly. He chanced a peep over at his teammate. Levi look positively lust-ridden. Bel noted the bulge in the spiky haired man's pants, and smirked to himself.

Levi was so depraved. _This is so easy it's embarrassing_. He shifted his over-sized shirt just a bit higher, exposing more of his flawless skin to Levi's lecherous stare.

" The prince is nice and clean now~," The younger man said, content. Levi gulped. Bel inwardly snickered at Levi's shameless gawking. He was going to milk this just a bit more and…

"They're nice, aren't they?" That certainly caught the older man's attention.

"Eh-eh -what?" Came the articulate reply. Bel ignored him, continuing to stroke himself suggestively.

"They're so soft…and creamy…it's like touching silk. Shishi~" Bel whispered huskily, loving the reactions of his pathetic comrade. Levi, on the other hand, was absolutely speechless. How had this happened? Last time he checked, he liked women. Yet here he was, crossing his legs to hide his obvious erection, and sweating profusely. And all over that damn snobby prince! But…if there was one thing he knew about Bel, it was that he loved to shock people. And walking around with no pants on was certainly shocking enough. If it wasn't for the fact that Levi knew Belphegor was a guy…

Damn this brat, and damn his sexy womanly thighs!

"Do you want to touch them, Levi?" Bel asked, again in that low, husky voice. Levi could see a dangerous glint behind that mop of blonde hair.

"Well do you?" the royal pressed. At that the guardian of thunder stuttered.

"W-why would I wanna do that?" Levi scooted to the furthest end of the couch set, trying to increase the distance between the two of them. Belphegor stretched, much like a feline would, and crawled slowly on his hands and knees, like a wildcat on the prowl, over the older man.

" What's the matter Levi? It's pretty obvious that you want to…" Bel continued his 'attack,' striped shirt dropping off one shoulder, exposing to Levi's eyes yet another interesting tattoo he had never noticed that the storm guardian had, this time along his collar bone. It read,'the motherfu-' the rest was cut off from his view. He'd have to ask Fran what it said later, if he remembered.(A/N: I'm sure you can guess what it says) Just what _did_ this guy do in his spare time? The prince saw the distant look in the older man's eyes and mentally pouted. He hated being ignored. Time to finish this.

"Leviii~," the whispery voice that was uniquely Prince the Ripper's cooed at him. When did the younger man get so close? Belphegor was practically straddling the older man, and… petting him. It was safe to say Levi was greatly disturbed. Belphegor commenced the final attack of his sensual onslaught. "Leviii…touch meee…" the prince wrapped his lithe arms around Levi's neck, and whispered into his ear. "I'm positively _aching_ for it…" and licked the shell of Levi's ear, just for good measure. _Gross! He tastes like hot cheese! _Bel reminded himself to thoroughly brush his tongue later_._

The Lightning wielder was so flustered he all but chucked the blonde off of him and absconded out of the room, yelling a garbled "Please excuse me!" as exited the lounge with epic speed. Belphegor noted the tint of red in Levi's hand as he pinched his nostrils closed.

Nosebleed. _Shishi~ ! The prince is the winner!_

The blonde prince picked himself up off the floor, laughing evilly. It was then that a certain froggy-hat wearing kohai made his appearance. Belphegor spotted the ridiculous frog eyes peering at him from the corner. The rest of the younger mist guardian materialized after.

"You were here the whole time?"

"Yep. Did you have a good time raping Levi-san?" Fran asked apathetically.

Stab.

"Looks like I win the bet sempaii," the mist illusionist said in that placid tone of his as he joined the slasher prince on the couch, stealing his spot on the chaise. Belphegor's laughter ceased abruptly.

"What? Didn't you see that? I told you I could give him a nosebleed, ushishi~! No one can resist the prince's unearthly sex appeal!" the blonde declared conceitedly, stretching out languidly on the couch, booted feet resting in Fran's lap.

"You're a regular stud, fallen prince-sempai." Fran quipped sarcastically, as he promptly pushed Belphegor's feet off of him and brought his legs up to rest his chin on his knees.

Stab.

"Ow, that hurt." Fran sighed as he plucked the three oddly shaped knives from the frog's face. And proceeded to bend them.

"Anyway, the bet was that you could give pervert Levi-san a nosebleed _without_ touching him in anyway. You _sat_ on him. Ergo, you lose the bet, stupid-prince."

Stab x5.

"Shut it, uncute kohai. The prince never loses! You're officially my bitch for the week!" Fran put his hands on the stupid hat in resignation. "So I can't take this hat off for today?" Fran sunk further into the couch.

"Hell no. Shishi~" Fran almost looked crestfallen. It wasn't really any different from his usual expression, so it went unnoticed. And wasn't he pretty much the prince's bitch anyway?

"Hmm…I bet Levi-san exploded." The mist guardian stated out of nowhere, wiggling his toes, and admiring his zebra print socks. Bel ignored him, and flipped the channel to HBO. Dexter was coming on soon. The two sat in silence. After a few minutes Fran turned to the narcissistic prince.

"Bel-sempaaaiii"

"What ,toad?" Fran gave Belphegor's pelvic region a pointed look.

"Can you please put some pants on? I find it awkward to sit next to a fake prince in women's underwear."

STAB.

* * *

Just in case anyone's curious, I _was_ actually watching that dolphin program while I was typing this. I LOL'D like a mofo at the bit about the dolphin sex, just because it was so unexpected! Though in retrospect, it doesn't sound as funny reading it as when you actually hear it on TV, with the old narrator guy sounding so bored talking about male dolphin erections, and yea, it was totally awkward cause my mom walked by right as he said that and I laughed…*sweatdrop* Yet, it seemed oddly appropriate for the story. Plus, yes, I was wearing zebra print socks, and they're B.A.M.F. socks.

Anyway, thanks for reading! Review or Bel will walk into your living room and try to seduce you in women's undies. And succeed.


	5. His Extraterrestrial Majesty

Hey homie G Skillets! Welcome back to Phases of Accidia! Here is Chapter Cinco for your reading pleasure!

A/N: This chapter beat my ass. Seriously. But here it is! Slight angst toward the end, and it **is** bel-centric, despite the fact that he's absent for a good chunk of it.

Warnings: Gratuitous amounts of alcohol, cursing and drunken theories. Enjoy.

* * *

V. His Extraterrestrial Majesty

It was over a traditional Italian feast one night at the Varia headquarters that Lussuria came to a startling realization. As he delicately twirled some fettucine onto his fork, he thought with a slight frown, half-watching a nine-year old Belphegor ram breadstick after breadstick into his mouth, marinara sauce coating his face and the entire front of his shirt.

Lussuria ran shaded eyes over the mop of blonde hair and down to the prince's dirty face. The more he thought about it, the more it bothered him. _What on earth does Belphegor look like?_ It occurred to Lussuria that the youngest of their group had been with them now for about five or sixth months, and he was fairly certain no one had ever seen the child's entire face. He was snapped out of his thoughts by a small, but by no means timid voice.

"The prince knows he cute, but could you please stop staring? It's kinda weird." He realized then that everyone (the core Varia members only) around the table was staring at him in mild amusement. He blushed.

"Oh my~! I've been caught staring at the super adorable little prince~! He gushed, trying to cover up his embarrassment at being caught. Belphegor blanched.

"I hope you're aware that pedophilia is a crime." Said the snooty prince as he returned to the massacre on his plate that was his chicken and four cheese Penne. Lussuria would have been insulted, were it not for the fact that his curiosity was officially peaked and thus, he completely brushed of the jab. He returned to his Alfredo, still in deep thought.

* * *

He finally brought it up later that night, when the young boy was forced to go to bed, and the older teens of the assassination squad sat around in one of the many plush lounges scattered around the castle.

"Hey guys?" Lussuria asked, in an uncharacteristically quiet and serious voice. The others ceased their boisterous rough-housing and arguing to look at the green-mohawk donning boy.

"Yea what?" Squalo demanded. He still wasn't completely comfortable with Lussuria, and his…_feminine_... personality, for lack of better description. As a result, he was always a bit snappier with the younger teen.

"Well, I was just thinking, doess anyone know what Bel looks like?" He glanced around as everyone's face momentarily blanked. Even Xanxus, who was slouched in his favorite chair a few feet away, glass of wine in hand, looked up with slightly widened eyes at the question.

"I got no fuckin' clue!" Squalo answered in typical Squalo fashion, as the white –haired sword wielder knocked back his fifth or sixth shot of tequila. Lussuria turned to Levi. The older teen shrugged. He didn't know either. Which isn't suprising, considering its Levi.

"No one knows?" Lussuria couldn't believe it. After all this time, they really didn't know anything about the newest addition to their group. They should at least know what he looks like under all that hair, right?

"I wonder what color his eyes are…" Lussuria thought out loud.

"Pshh… I bet they're bright red, like a demon." Levi spouted out. He, for one, thought the homicidal prince was really creepy. Especially with that little laugh of his, coupled with that giant smile permanently glued to his face…Levi visibly shuddered.

"Now that I think about it, is he even Italian? I mean, he speaks it perfectly, but he said he ventured from his 'kingdom' when he joined up with us, remember?" Squalo piped up. For all they knew, it seemed that Belphegor, in the very least, was not a full-blooded Italian. When he spoke, they noticed a nearly imperceptible accent. It was just a matter of matching it to a country.

"Nah, I don't think so. Look at the kid's nose; it has that little hook at the end. That's like an eastern European thing, I think. I'm betting on Germany or Norway." Surprisingly, Xanxus was the one who offered up that piece of intelligence. So, even the temperamental Varia boss was curious.

"Hang on, the fuckin' tequila's empty. I'ma go get another one." Squalo slurred a bit. He was already a bit buzzed. The others continued to throw out ideas.

An hour passed.

Over that time, the four of them had somehow ended up in a circle on the floor, respective booze of choice planted next to them. Yes, even Xanxus, in an almost unheard of display of sociability. 'Thinking caps' on, the four teens pondered the enigma that was Prince Belphegor.

"What if he has some disease that fucked up his eyes or something? You know, like that one that those dogs have." Squalo pictured Belphegor in his mind with one blue eye and one brown eye.

"Heterochromia, retard." Xanxus muttered lowly, earning a snarl from the slightly older teen.

"Voi! Shaddup!"

"What if he's blind?" It was Levi's turn to speculate. The thought of the slasher prince with glassy, opaque eyes gave him the willies, but he didn't walk around feeling everything like Levi had seen blind people do. Also, when he looked at you, you could tell he was looking at _you_, and not just in your general direction. So_,_ blindness was unlikely.

"Maybe he has a scar~?" Lussuria, sipped daintily on his glass of Pinot Grigio as he pictured Belphegor with an ugly slash across one of his eyes, like from a sword, like he had seen on a picture of a samurai in Japan a long time ago.

"I don't think the runt would be shy enough about a scar to grow his bangs out that long. That can't be it." Xanxus said, reaching for a bottle of pure Russian Vodka Squalo had brought back along with his tequila and had left over on the table. He chugged straight from the bottle.

"What if he's horribly disfigured? Like a monster?" Ever one gave Levi a stupid look.

Levi glanced around at everyone abashedly.

"What? It's a possibilty, right?" He imagined Belphegor lifting up his thick bangs to reveal one huge, bulging irisless eye, paired with one eye that was way to tiny. Kind of like Igor. Levi cracked a smile. That would be hilarious.

"What if he has no eyes? Maybe the kid's an alien?" Squalo speculated loudly. Squalo's mental image was one of the blonde prince with a blank space were his eyes should've been, gravitating toward him, arms outstretched and trademark smile in place.

Let it be known that by this time, the four were fairly intoxicated, and weren't letting up anytime soon.

"Whoa… that's fuckin'trippy." Squalo said, chuckling a bit.

This back and forth discussion over the young prince's mysterious face continued for over three hours. It was early into the twilight hours, and by now the four were so completely inebriated that they were giggling and seeing doubles of everything. Despite that, their heated speculatory session was still in full throttle.

"Seriously… I bet one of his eyes's fucked up! Didn't him an' his brother hate each other? Maybe he stabbed him in the eye wit' a fork or some shit like that." At this point, Squalo was on his back, lying across one of the tables, arms and legs dangling off the edges. He stared up at the ceiling, absently marveling at the deep red of the paint in the room.

"Could be. He gets iffy when anyone mentions his family." Xanxus sat near Squalo, albeit upside down in the recliner. He was still chugging the bottle of vodka.

It was then that Levi got everyone's attention.

"Hey. What if Bel's a cyclops?"

Everyone turned to look at him.

"A…cyclops." Xanxus raised an angular eyebrow at the other hitman cynically.

"Yea like in that one greek story! The cyclops was the one that had the one eye-"

"Voi! We know what it is jackass…He means why would ya think that?" Squalo leaned his head back to glare at Levi. But Levi was undeterred.

"Think about it! It's not completely impossible, you know. There's this disease that makes babies be born with one eye. It's really rare." Levi reasoned, surprisingly logical for one so drunk.

The other three mulled over that piece of information and collectively glanced up at the ceiling, to where they knew the prince's room was.

Xanxus stood up suddenly, if not a bit clumsily. His comrades turned to look up at him. The boss pointed drunkenly toward the prince's room.

"Let's go find out!" He, again drunkenly, declared as marched out of the room with surprising determination, like a general leading his troops into battle.

And so, the four intoxicated teenagers made their way steadily to the other side of the castle. It took much longer than necessary, since one of them would trip on the stairs and laugh every few minutes.

* * *

At last, they stood outside the door to Belphegor's room. It occurred to them simultaneously that they had never even been inside the kid's room before. Naturally, it was Levi who was having second thoughts about entering the slasher's domain.

"You sure about this boss?" He whispered heatedly to Xanxus, who just stood glaring at the door knob.

Well, either he was glaring at it, or trying to concentrate enough to figure out which of the two doorknobs was the real one, and why the hell they were spinning so fast. He reached out and took hold of one of the gold knobs. Hopefully the real one.

"You motherfucker's ready?" He turned to his subordinates. The three nodded, although slightly hesistantly. The Varia leader turned the knob, which he apparently found, slowly and pushed. Their eyes were met with darkness.

The prince's massive, canopy style bed was located in the farthest corner of the room. The posh velvet curtains were still slightly drawn back on the gigantic window, allowing the pale moonlight to pour into the room, illuminating the youngest member in the group. The prince was lying on his stomach, in a mess of pillows, limbs and sheets, snoring softly. His trademark tiara sat on the nightstand next to his bed. Toys and gadgets of all varieties littered the floor. They found that out when Squalo stepped on a toy robot. Hard.

"OOWWW!" The others quickly turned to slap all of their hands over the teen's mouth.

"SHH!" They all hushed him, and turned to the sleeping prince. Thankfully, he didn't budge. The four older teens slowly ventured on toward the boy until they all surrounded the king-sized bed. Squalo crossed his arms, staring acidly at the others. Xanxus in particular, who looked like he was having second thoughts.

"Well, what now, oh esteemed leader?" Squalo drawled out sarcastically, promptly earning him a wack on the head from Xanxus.

"Shut the fuck up you piece of shit." Xanxus growled back in a low voice. He turned back toward the sleeping child.

"We'll just look, okay? It'll be quick."

It should have been that easy. But the four boys' collective drunken state proved to be a major hinderance. Levi had sat down on the floor while Xanxus and Squalo bickered, leaning against one of the bed posts. The teen rubbed his rapidly closing eyes in an attempt to keep himself awake a bit longer. It wasn't meant to be, however. He passed out immediately.

"Looks like Levi's out~!" Lussuria pointed to the lightning wielder. Now that he thought about it, he was suddenly starting to feel the effects of the alcohol. He felt his eyelids begin to droop. While the two others debated about how to go about their little 'plan,' Lussuria dragged himself over to a comfy looking couch across from Belphegor's bed. The Muay Thai expert curled up and fell asleep.

It was down to two.

"Just fuckin' do it already!" Squalo pushed Xanxus lightly towards the occupant of the bed. The sky guardian pushed him back.

"Shaddup! I was getting ready to!" Xanxus glared down at the little boy. He slowly inched his hand towards him, and promptly withdrew it back when the boy stirred.

"Shit! He's gonna wak-" Xanxus slapped a hand over Squalo's impossibly loud mouth in irritation, pinning him with a disbelieving look. How fucking hard was it to speak in a normal volume? The blonde prince stretched out and rolled away from the two teens hovering over him. He ended up back on his face, arms splayed at his sides and legs, bent at the knees, folded under his skinny torso. His butt was sticking up in the air, like some kind of strange yoga position. He sighed contentedly and drifted back into dreamland.

Squalo snorted. If only he had his camera.

Xanxus released him from his deathgrip. "You trying to wake him up or something, foghorn?" He whispered heatedly. Squalo just glared back. The Varia boss turned back toward the bed, and smirked at the kid's interesting sleeping position.

"How can that possibly be comfortable?" He thought out loud, yawning into the back of his hand. That made Squalo yawn as well.

"Come on, just look already! I'm fuckin' falling asleep." He glanced behind him to see his two comrades thoroughly out of commission.

"Levi 'n' Lussuria passed the fuck out." Squalo had a habit of pointing out the obvious when intoxicated. He stretched, his bones popping satisfactorily. Scratching his flat stomach under his shirt, he turned back when he heard a light thump. He saw his boss and friend (relatively speaking), slumped over the edge of the prince's bed, snoring rather obnoxiously. He was out too. _That was quick._ He glowered, slapping a hand over his face.

Squalo was the only one left standing.

It was his job to see this impromptu mission to its bitter end. He edged closer to the slumbering boy, inwardly wishing he could somehow send the picture of Belphegor sleeping in a "receiving" position telepathically to his camera. _If only the fuckin' baby was awake_. He thought. Unfortunately, Mammon was just that, a baby, and thus had retired much earlier in the evening. If anyone could do that, it was most likely the little psychic Arcobaleno.

He inched closer. His heart was racing in his chest. Why was he suddenly so nervous? It was just Bel for crying out loud! _It's not like the kid sleeps with knives under his pil- _Squalo stopped. This was the Slasher Prince. _Slasher _Prince_. I take that back. He probably has a goddamn chainsaw hidden under there somewhere._ Nonetheless, he perservered. He leaned in closer to boy, shaky hand outstretched and reaching toward the long golden bangs. He gulped. _Here we go…_

At that moment, Squalo's stomach, in ironically horrible timing, decided it was time to forcibly remove all the alcohol from his system. The rain guardian slapped a hand over his mouth as he raced toward the prince's bathroom and proceeded to spill out his stomach contents into the bowl of the toilet.

* * *

The sun shone on a crown of blonde hair. Belphegor's hidden eyes cracked open slowly, before blinking shut again, wishing for the sun to explode. He was** not** a morning person. The young prince sat up on his elbows, stretching languidly, scratching at his neck and hair alternately. It was then he noticed an unfamiliar weight on his stomach. Looking down, the young assassin saw an arm draped across his torso.

_I don't remember killing anyone last night…what the hell… _He thought to himself as he examined the arm closely. No blood. And… it was still attached to a body. The body of his boss, to be exact. _Well__… this is awkward_… Belphegor wasn't quite sure what to do. _Should I just go back to sleep? Or move his arm and risk losing a limb? _The prince debated within his mind. In the end, he took the risk, because he really had to pee.

Socked feet padded softly onto the floor as Belphegor did his best to step over Xanxus's prone form. _Phew_. The prince thought, as he turned to make his way to his personal bathroom…only to trip over a leg. The storm guardian rubbed his forehead in annoyance. What now? He glared at the leg, which belonged to Levi.

The prince was confused, but he reeeally needed to go. He could ponder about why his boss and the ugly perve were in his room after he relieved himself. He continued the mini-trek to his bathroom, spotting Lussuria over on the couch, still curled up in a ball. Belphegor wondered at that moment if he was dreaming. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, he made his way into the bathroom, and stopped.

The last member of their squad, one Superbia Squalo, was draped over the toilet, head resting in folded arms on top of the lid. He was snoring loudly, as expected.

"Did they have a party in my room while I was sleeping or something?" The slasher thought out loud as he kicked Squalo's head off of the seat, and resumed his morning business. The shark awoke a few moments later, as the prince was washing his hands.

"Voi," he croaked out, "where the hell am I?" He looked around in confusion, before he remembered what had transpired less than five hours ago. He sat up quickly. The young boy casually walked over and smiled, sitting on his hauches to stare at Squalo in amusement. "Shishi~, you passed out in the prince's bathroom."

Squalo shook his head to get rid of the sleepiness, and immediately regretted it. A wave of dizziness made his stomach turn. Hopefully he wouldn't throw up again. Belphegor just stared him down for a bit longer before walking out of the bathroom, clapping his hands loudly.

"Alright everybody! Wake the hell up!" He continued slapping his palms together as he walked over to Lussuria first. The martial artist stirred a bit and finally sat up, hair and ever present sunglasses askew, yawning lightly into his hand.

"Good morning~!" He smiled at Belphegor, who waved back before dumping a glass of water on Levi's head. The older boy jolted awake.

"W-what?" He stuttered, shaking stray droplets of water out of his hair and off of his face. He glared up at the young boy, who had already moved on to the last sleeping person in the room. He stared at Xanxus, biting his lip and juggling his options. Wake him up, or not. _Should I? _ The prince crouched down next to his sleeping commander. _Oh hell yeah_.

And he yelled. Loudly.

"XAAAAAAAAANXUUUUUUUUUUUUUS-SAAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAAA!"

The older teen shot up from the side of the bed, whipping his gun out of his hammer space. A bit of crusted drool ran down the side of his lip to his chin.

"What the fuck!" He looked around wildly, only lowering his pistol when he realized he wasn't under attack, but was surrounded by his squad. He sighed, brushing a shaky hand through his dark hair, trying to retain what remained of his dignity. He wiped his chin when no one was looking.

"Why are you guys in the prince's room?" Belphegor asked up at him, confusion and irritation apparent in his whispery voice.

"Uhh…" Xanxus looked to Lussuria, who looked to Levi, who looked to Squalo, who was stomping out of the bathroom, rubbing his face where Bel had kicked him a few minutes ago.

"We came to see if you were an alien." He said honestly. Belphegor gave him a deadpanned look.

"No, we came to prove he was a cyclops!" Levi shouted from the floor, still shaking his hair dry.

"I wanted to see if he had a scar, like that samurai~!" Lussuria piped up from his corner of the room.

"I…I dunno. I was drunk." Xanxus shrugged, pinching the bridge of his nose. He felt a massive hangover coming on.

"No, he's an alien!" Squalo.

"A monster!" Levi.

"Oh my, don't fight~!" Lussuria.

Xanxus yawned, but remained silent as the three others bickered. Through all of this, Belphegor looked between them in exasperation. So, that was it. He knew they'd get curious sooner or later. Belphegor seriously contemplated whether he should show them or not. It was really nothing shocking, but the fact that he purposely grew his hair out just to cover his face would most certainly raise a lot of questions. But nonetheless… he figured he'd better do something quick, as the two hungover teens were about to come to blows over this.

"Shishi~ guess I'd better show them before they kill each other." He said to himself as he pushed his thick blonde hair out of his face.

"Hey guys." He was ignored. The prince pouted. He turned to Xanxus, poking him in the ribs. The older teen looked down at him, eyes widening at the new face. The sky guardian growled out to the still arguing boys.

"Yo trash! Shut the fuck up and take a look at the kid!" the three teens ceased their argument to look at the youngest member.

They were met with _two, evenly proportioned _clear grey eyes, framed by thick black lashes. They reminded Lussuria of the shade of grey the clouds would turn right before it snowed; a grey so light it was almost clear. They were absolutely breathtaking. The two eyes were set in a pale, ethereally regal face; the skin looked to be as smooth as a baby's (not Mammon) bottom.

The four older boys were stunned silent. The rain guardian was the first to break the tense quiet.

"Damn…you look…normal." Squalo's shoulders slumped a bit. Belphegor frowned at that. What the hell were they expecting?

Lussuria on the other hand…

"OMG~! What a doll! You are gonna be a little heartbreaker when you get older!" The flamboyant martial artist pinched the boy's cheeks, gushing about how many perspective lovers he would have once he reached adolescence.

"Whatever." The prince said tiredly as he shook his head free from Lussuria's claws, letting his mop of hair fall back over his face and yawned.

"Get out already! I'm going back to sleep." He pointed to the door in annoyance.

"Later trash." Xanxus, having met his "friend/big brother" quota for the year, didn't need to be told twice. He immediately made a bee-line for the door, presumably to go sleep his hangover away. Dejectedly, Squalo and Levi followed soon after. Neither tried to hide their apparent disappointment at the fact that Bel was indeed a normal human being. In the_ technical_ sense of the word, anyway. Lussuria also began to make his way to the door, before he stopped and looked to their newest recruit, who had slipped back under his covers and was fluffing up his pillow.

"Why _do_ you cover your face, Bel?" He asked, tone serious for once. The blond prince stopped. He looked up from his pillow to the sun guardian corners of his mouth turned downward. He looked at the floor and sighed. It was only a matter of time before someone asked. He was surprised it took them this long.

"I'll tell you guys when I'm ready. You don't know me well enough for me to trust you yet." And with that, the blonde settled himself back under the plush black covers and fell asleep.

Lussuria smiled sadly. He got his answer. Belphegor certainly had the face of a handsome prince. But one answer always leads to more questions. Unfortunately, it seemed the little prince wouldn't be devulging any more information for quite a while. He'd have to settle for now. Whatever the boy had to hide, he had to be absolutely sure that he could trust the others with his life before sharing. The eccentric Muay Thai master slipped out of the room quietly, and walked back to his room for some well deserved rest.

It would be a long time before Belphegor would tell them his story.

* * *

There its done! Man, I had a hard time trying to end this, but hopefully I did alright. Meh. Anyway, this will be my last post 'til probably Friday or Saturday. School is ruining my life, as usual and I have some serious studying to do! So, until then, read, laugh, cry, whatever, and then review! Or the Varia will creep into your room and fall asleep on your toilet!


	6. Ataraxia

A/N: SushiBomb is back! Tests for this week are in the can, so I can focus on P.O.A. for a couple of days. Like literally as soon as I got home from school, I sat down with my craptop and hammered this chapter out.

Also, I wanted to mention that I'm a bit bummed at the lack of reviews this story is getting. I'm not a review whore or anything, and it makes me really happy to see all the hits P.O.A. has gotten since I posted it, but I would really love to know how everyone who's been reading it feels about the story. So please please please! Leave a review, even if its just a quick "Good Job!" or "Your story sucks go die in a fire (please don't say though, because I'm sensitive and I'll cry for days D: )" any little bit of feedback would be much appreciated!

Jeewiz…Anyway, this chapter is a bit different from the previous ones. It's the first angsty/dramatic piece for the collection. It's based on the song 'Ataraxia' by Team Sleep, which is a beautiful song and I highly recommend listening to it while reading this story. This is set in the past, when Bel first joins the Varia. I tried to keep them as in character as possible.

Alright, I'm done babbling. Here's the chapter! Enjoy!

* * *

VI. Ataraxia

Nights in the Varia Headquarters were relatively calm. When all the staff and lower ranking soldiers retired to their separate quarters for the evening, the six core members remained pretty much alone in the daunting castle. It was late into the evening one night, and one member still walked, or more accurately, floated down the halls.

Up until now, Mammon had been in the study, reviewing the Varia's financial statements. As the member with the most extensive knowledge of all things money, the mist arcobaleno took it upon himself to scrutinize the documents for any little accounting error, before presenting them to Vongola Nono the following day. For an appropriate fee, of course.

As he neared his personal suite, the baby heard the most unexpected sound. An assassin of his caliber, who specialized in the art of mental torture, had of course heard the sound of someone crying before; it pretty much came with the job. But to hear it within the _Varia _headquarters, in the _absence_ of everyone but the officers? That was unheard of.

The soft weeping increased in volume as Mammon got closer to his room. Now it was starting to make a bit of sense. The only person who shared this wing with him was the new recruit. The young prince who had joined them not but a month or two ago.

_Hmm…its happening a lot more often_. Mammon thought to himself.

Something not many, if any at all, knew about Belphegor was that he had a severe case of Insomnia. In fact, the only person that was privy to this bit of 'highly classified' information was Mammon, since they were neighbors. Mammon would often hear the small boy shuffling about late at night, desperately trying to fall asleep. Sometimes he heard pacing. Other times, it would sound like the boy was talking to himself. About what, Mammon decided he'd rather not know. But crying? That was certainly new.

The mist guardian stopped in front of the door to the blonde prince's room. The barely audible crying began to die down a bit, until he heard only the occasional sniffle.

Mammon shrugged, pushing open the door to his room. As long as this didn't interfere with his money, he decided he couldn't care less.

* * *

"Voooooiii! You listening, munchkin?" Squalo screamed into the ear of a half-conscious Belphegor. The squad of young hitmen was out in the courtyard for their daily sparring and training session. Squalo was the one in charge, as Xanxus couldn't be bothered to come down from his room to train with them. So, as the temporary 'leader,' Squalo paired up and directed the others in practice matches.

Lussuria had just beaten Levi; a series of quick jabs from the Muay Thai master rendered the lightning user completely helpless before he could even whip out one of his parasols.

It was the prince's turn, and he was up against Mammon. Or at least it would have been, if the prince would scrape himself off of the tree he had taken to leaning against. Squalo, who hated having his authority disrespected, immediately stomped over, looking irate. As per usual.

"Voi brat! Let's get a fuckin' move on! It's you and the half pint next!" The rain guardian demanded again. Belphegor looked up at him wearily; trademark grin looking more like a grimace as he slowly rose from his perch on the ground. The blonde made his way to the makeshift ring in the middle of the stone courtyard, where the little arcobaleno waited patiently.

"About damn time…" Levi muttered. He was still sore about losing to Lussuria so quickly, and wanted nothing more than to return to his room and sulk the day away.

With the young child finally taking his place in the ring, the two combatants took their respective stances; Belphegor's knives materialized from where ever it was he kept them, and Mammon began conjuring up an illusion. The prince charged. A set of three knives tucked between his fingers, he made a clumsy swipe for what turned out to be an after image of the arcobaleno.

"Where are you Mammon? The prince will find you! Ushishi~!" The prince said with his now infamous snicker, as he slashed image after image, visibly getting more frustrated by the minute. He stopped for a breath, yawning slightly and rubbing his hidden eyes. From his hiding place, the mist illusionist could see the obvious exhaustion in the slumping shoulders of the boy. The usually upbeat and energetic child looked as if he would collapse any second.

He should end this quickly.

Thrusting out his illusionary tentacles, Mammon curled them around the prince's small torso, hoisting the boy several feet off of the ground. Belphegor kicked his little legs, trying in vain to free himself. Mammon materialized in front of him.

"Do you give up?" The mist guardian asked.

"No!" At this proximity, Mammon could hear the boys labored breathing and desperate grunts as he wiggled about in the vice-like grip.

"Give up." Mammon said again. Squalo hollered out to the two.

"Alright that's enough! The match goes to Mammon!" At the call, the infant released the small boy from his grip. The young storm guardian stumbled to his feet. Squalo walked over to him, head cocked slightly to one side.

"Hey kid, you alright?" He asked, for once at a reasonable decibal. He placed his hand on top of the crown of golden tresses. Belphegor slapped his hand away, smiling up at him with that cold, manic smile of his.

"The prince is fine, just… I'm fine." With that, the prince stormed back to the castle. The others just glanced at each other curiously before continuing their training.

* * *

The next night at dinner, it was obvious that something was not right with the royal child. The usually ravenous Belphegor merely picked at his Filet Mignon, and pushed his Vermicelli noodles around his plate, occasionally slurping up a mouthful.

With his chin resting in his palm, the boy was eerily quiet. This made everyone else at the table a bit tense, as Bel was the one who often initiated conversations (read: instigated arguments) between his fellow hitmen. In the short time he had been with them, Belphegor had made little mental notes about what pissed off who, and what to say to throw this person (usually Squalo) spiraling into a tantrum. The sadistic eight year-old had a knack for pushing the right buttons.

Mammon looked up at the boy next to him. The prince's head would occasionally slide tiredly down his flattened palm before he would snap back to attention, only to steadily droop again a few minutes later.

Lussuria, as the self-proclaimed mother/big sis/ female figure of their dysfunctional little group, decided it was time to say something.

"Hey Bel, honey, is something the matter? You look a bit under the weather,and you've hardly touched your steak." The others around the table looked up from their respective plates to hear the blonde boy's response.

None came verbally, but it was pretty obvious that the prince was glaring heatedly up at the flamboyant man. Belphegor didn't like being put on the spot when it didn't benefit him. He elegantly shook his mop of gold, hand returning to his eating utensils. He sniffed haughtily.

"The prince is fine." Squalo looked at him skeptically.

"Yeah right, that's what you said yesterday, when you were obviously about fuckin' fall over." He chuckled at the boy, but Belphegor just stared him down with the ferocity of a caged animal.

"Who asked you, dickhead?" He seethed back at the older boy. Belphegor had quite a colorful vocabulary for an eight-year old.

"Watch your mouth, runt." Xanxus warned from his end of the table. Belphegor just gave him a dirty look. He pushed his plate away in a huff, shoving back his ornate wooden chair and trudged out of the dining hall.

"Whatever. I'm not hungry anymore."

* * *

With the plate of leftover steak and noodles that the prince had ignored earlier in hand, Mammon glided down the hallway to he and Belphegor's wing. He figured he had it within him to occasionally be charitable enough to do nice things for people for free, and he was certain that by now, the arrogant young prince was starving. He patted Phantasma's scaly head lightly.

"Hang in there Phantasma." The uruboros made no noise to express it's exhaustion at aiding the infantile illusionist to fly around. Normally, it wasn't a problem, but holding the rather heavy plate of food was wearing the mythical serpent down.

Mammon knocked lightly on the dark mahogany doors, delicately balancing the plate in one tiny hand. When he heard no answer, he let himself in, albeit a bit hesitantly.

"Bel?" After setting the plate on a nearby table, Mammon signaled for Phantasma to lower him to the ground, and began his search for the young prince on foot. He stroked the uruboros with something akin to affection as it tucked itself away in his dark Varia robe.

He heard the bath running through the doorway on the other side of the room. Shuffling over, Mammon called out to the homicidal prince again.

"Hey Bel- what?" The arcobaleno stopped as he felt something wet underneath his booted feet. A rather large puddle of water was accumulating in the walk-in closet which lead to Belphegor's bathroom. Mammon was starting to feel a bit anxious. He pushed open the heavy door to the bathroom. The floor was covered in a thin film of water, which was still running heavily over the side of the ornate bathtub. The blonde prince was lying in the tub, head leaning against one of the edges.

The small illusionist feared the worst.

He may not have known the boy for long, but he certainly didn't want him to die. Summoning Phantasma, Mammon floated over to child. Leaning in, he listened intently. He heard the boy's steady breathing and relaxed.

_Good. He's just asleep_. Mammon released the breath he hadn't even realized he had been holding as he shut off the tap.

"What are you doing in here?" The baby turned back at the irritated voice. Belphegor was sitting up, staring at the puddle of water in confusion, scratching at his wet hair. Apparently, the prince was a very light sleeper.

"I brought you some food…" Mammon wasn't really sure how to progress.

"And…you fell asleep in the bathtub." He said floating over to a rack at the opposite end of the room to retrieve a fluffy towel for the small boy, who had made to stand up. Belphegor suddenly plopped back down tiredly, settling for letting his arm and head hang over the edge of the tub.

"Bel, what's wrong with you?" Mammon asked in genuine concern, or at least as genuinely concerned as the baby could be, setting the towel back on the rack when he realized the prince wouldn't be getting out anytime soon.

"Nothing…" The child hitman ground out, before dunking his head under the water, popping back up with his mass of gold slicked back, exposing stormy grey orbs to the infantile mist guardian. Out of all of the members, Belphegor had no qualms about showing his face to Mammon, because he knew the greedy arcobaleno probably didn't care about the reason he hid it. But Mammon wasn't going to let him pout his way out of this. Whatever was causing the prince to lose sleep was becoming a serious threat to the boy's well being.

Belphegor angrily turned his head away from the arcobaleno who had now perched himself on the edge of the tub adjacent to the prince.

"Its obviously not nothing if you make it a point to act like a brat every time someone asks y-" Mammon was promptly silenced as water splashed his hooded face. Wiping his face with his sleeve, the baby glared at the blonde in the tub, who was glaring right back.

"That proves my point." Belphegor's eyes narrowed.

"Who asked you, you stupid baby."

"No one, but it's obvious you have a problem. I can hear you at night, walking around, crying." The prince's head shot up at that. His lips curled into a snarl that looked scarily out of place on the face of an eight-year old boy. Belphegor roughly grabbed him by the collar.

"It's none of your fucking business!" He screamed into the baby's face, shaking him lightly. Mammon was unaffected.

"Maybe not now, but what would happen if we got sent out on assignment and you got killed because you collapsed in the middle of a fight somewhere? That may sound silly, but the way you're going, it seems pretty likely."

Belphegor released Mammon's collar and settled back into his spot on the other side of the tub, pointedly looking away from the tiny guardian. In this lighting, Mammon could see the dark circles forming under his eyes quite clearly.

"It's hard for you, isn't it?" The baby asked quietly. Grey eyes looked at him with fatigue.

"What do you mean?" He asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

"You know perfectly well what I mean, Bel. You don't sleep." Belphegor looked incensed.

"I do too sleep, stupid baby! You don't even know what you're talking about!" He shouted.

"Yeah, like when? Now? Are you aware that if I hadn't come in, your head would have eventually slid below the water and you probably would've drowned?" The baby's sharp tone silenced the young royal, for once.

Belphegor stared hard at the porcelain wall of the tub, biting his lower lip. His eyes were watering quickly.

Mammon sighed. He hadn't meant to be so derisive with the child, but it seemed that was what it took to get him to listen.

"Bel, come on. What is it?" He pressed.

"I…" The blonde released a shuddered breath. Running a pale hand through his wet hair, the prince hugged his knees to his chest, resting his cheek against one knee. His shoulders shook a bit.

"Mammon…" he whispered in the most pathetically small voice Mammon had ever heard. Tears were streaming down the boy's pale cheek, as he cried silently.

"I'm scared." Two eyebrows rose at the tiny declaration. He had never known the jubilant child to be afraid of anything.

"Of what?" Mammon asked, although in his mind, he already knew the answer.

"Going to sleep…" Belphegor whimpered, twirling a stray lock of gold around his petite finger. He hiccuped a couple of times, tiny tremors racking his small body.

"When I sleep, I always dream about my parents…and my brother…" Bel looked back up at him, look in his eyes completely disheartened.

Mammon understood now. He hadn't heard the whole story, but from what they (the Varia) knew about the youngest of their squad, before seeking them out, Belphegor had snapped and gone on a murderous rampage, killing his family in the process. To this day, he still hadn't told anyone the real reason why.

The boy curled himself up farther away into the corner of tub.

"Every time I close my eyes, I see them. They don't do anything…they just stand there and watch me." He whispered, taking a shaky breath.

The prince looked back over at the baby. "It's so scary…they just stand there the whole time, just staring at me, like dolls."

Mammon nodded in understanding.

"And I've been having this dream almost every night now. Then I can't fall back asleep." He sobbed.

"I don't wanna see them…but… I'm –I'm so tired, Mammon…I just want to sleep …" The boy finally let loose. Silent sobs racked the petite body as he cried into his knees, begging desperately for the rest that always seemed to elude him lately.

For one of the few times in his life, Mammon felt genuine pity on another human being. He considered himself to be of a relatively cold nature, as most hitmen were, but this boy, this _child, _curled up so tightly, crying to himself...

Mammon remembered when he had shown up on their doorstep. He remembered the purely maniacal look on the blonde boy's face, coated in blood from head to toe,as he smiled up at them, asking to join the Varia. That had only been about two months ago, but it felt more like two years.

Mammon glided over to the boy hesitantly. He looked so...so _small,_ sitting alone in that giant bathtub, shuddered breaths escaping through the sobs.

With that grin that spoke volumes about his mental state, and his inborn superhuman abilities as a calculating killer, it was easy to forget that Belphegor was just a kid. They all were, really, but none of the Varia could say that they had been the ones to snuff the light from the eyes of their own parents and siblings. Despite being aware of his actions, the strain of such a traumatic event on the mind of an eight-year old child, even one as complex and brilliant as the Slasher Prince's, had to be beyond compare.

Behind one of the most vicious Mafiosos to ever walk this Earth, there was a scared and lonely little boy who dearly missed his family.

Beneath the madness, was the guilt.

For the second time that night, Mammon sighed. He knew what he had to do. What was worse, he had to do it without pay. Because really, what could the little prince possibly have to offer him? Besides, if nothing else, Mammon could comfort the child the only way he thought would help.

The infant began to hum. The barely audible music silenced the sobs of the petite prince, as the water in the bathtub churned slowly, being drawn into the illusion the Arcobaleno of Mist was conjuring. Belphegor wiped at his bloodshot eyes hurriedly.

"Mammon, what are you doing?" He whispered in a tiny, croaking voice. The hooded infant frowned lightly, shaking his head.

"Good grief, you're lucky I'm feeling generous today." Was all the arcobaleno said as the baby disappeared from view, leaving Belphegor alone in the illusion.

He was suddenly on a long stretch of beach. Looking down at his all white clothing, a button up shirt and loose fitting pajama pants, the prince wiggled his bare feet. The black sand felt smooth between his small toes as he walked along the shoreline.

He heard singing. It sounded strangely familiar somehow.

"It's beautiful…" he said to himself, feeling a tranquility he had never recalled experiencing in his short life. The melodious humming was getting closer. As he looked up from the dark sand, he saw the figure of a woman, also dressed in white, standing a ways down the shore. Her indigo hair reached just above her pale shoulders, bangs slightly obscuring two ice blue eyes from view. The white backless sundress she wore accentuated her lithe, willowy figure.

As he neared, she turned to him, still humming the surreal sounding melody. One side of her mouth tilted upward in a slight smile as she walked, no, glided toward him, almost as if she were a specter. He looked up at her through his long blonde bangs. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. And yet, she seemed so familiar…

She said nothing, but wrapped her delicate arms around the small boy, pulling him into a gentle embrace. Belphegor pressed his tear-stained face into her flat stomach, as he relished the feeling of her dainty fingers soothingly combing through his golden tresses. His tiara was noticeably absent.

He yawned, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly drowsy. Closing his eyes softly, he rubbed his face into the mysterious woman's stomach as she leaned down to press a ghost of a kiss on his crown of blonde.

Belphegor felt himself drifting away, feeling an ease he'd give anything to feel again. As sleep steadily claimed him, the woman withdrew from the embrace, and he noticed a thin serpent bracelet hanging on her petite wrist. It was biting its tail, creating a circle out of its body.

* * *

Phew…and that's chapter 6 in the hole.

I think some explanations are in order:

1. Ataraxia is a Greek word for peace and tranquility, or an enlightened state of mind. If you really listen to the lyrics of the song (that is if you actually** listened** to the song, which I sincerely hope you did!) you'll understand the whole beach illusion a little better. The song adds a certain effect...I can't quite describe it, to that whole scene that makes it a bit more...dreamy. I hope that made some kind of sense.

2. Yes, that is Fem!Mammon, in case anyone didn't get the little hints. I know some (more like a lot, now that I notice) people dislike Fem!Mammon, but I actually find Mammon/Viper's character more appealing as a woman, rather than a man. To me, there is something decidedly female about Mammon, both in the anime, and in the manga as well. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the second I saw Viper as an adult, I was like 'whoa she looks cool!' Then when they started saying 'he,' I was like, 'wait...what?'

But oh well, I like Mammon either way. But you know, I hate that a lot of the characters in Reborn! that are actually interesting get virtually no love in this fandom. Boo. I hope to remedy that.

Excuse my mini-rant. I think that's all I had to say. Until next time!


	7. Beach Bums

A/N: Ciaossu! Welcome back to the seventh installment of P.O.A.!

So I went to this really lame con today with my friend, because she wanted to get the voice actor for Toma (from Gravitation)'s autograph. He was really nice, but the con was soooo retarded. But whatever, at least it was free. And plus, I bought this little pink Tokidoki plushie that has the words "Ciao Ciao" embroidered on its chest. It's so freaking cute!

Anyway, on to the story. So I really wanted to go to the beach this morning, but I know none of my friends like to go early, so the plan was scrapped. Instead, I made the Varia go to the beach on my behalf! This is set TYL! in the future, after the whole Byakuran Arc, and since the Arcobaleno were reincarnated (I guess), now Fran and Mammon are both present. Yeah.

Warnings: The usual. Cursing, violence towards Squalo, Fran's perviness, and potential child-napping!

* * *

VII. Beach Bums

"Seriously, put them on!"

"Muuu."

"Come on Mammon, you'll look cute! Ushishi~!"

The little Arcobaleno sighed in frustration.

"Bel, no matter what you say, there is no way on this **Earth** that you will get those floaties on me." The blonde just pouted.

"But the prince picked them out just for you!" Mammon stared at the hideous flower-patterned rainbow floaties with poorly masked disgust. They were by far the most unattractively colorful things he had ever seen in his entire life.

"I'm…flattered… that you thought of me enough to waste money on these cheap, ugly floaties." At that moment, Belphegor made a mad grab for the baby.

"Gotcha!" Or so he thought, as Mammon's after image turned into a dead jellyfish. The prince threw it as far away from him as he could.

"Oh gross!" He wiped his hand on his black swim trunks and ran back into the water, still looking for the baby who had made himself scarce.

Meanwhile, the rest of their little group arrived on the scene.

Lussuria stood up on the shore admiring the perfect sunny weather, gushing on about the fabulous tan he was going to get. Squalo stood to his left, looking for all the world like a cranky grandpa, with globs of sunscreen on his pale cheeks and nose.

"VOIIII! It's hot as motherfuckin' balls out here!" The swordsman shouted out in irritation, which earned him scathing glares from several mothers and fathers who walked away, covering the ears of their young children.

The irate rain guardian was suddenly eating sand as Xanxus roughly kicked him in the back. Expensive designer sunglasses hid his scarlet eyes from view, but it was plain as day that the leader of the elite squad was less than delighted at being dragged out of his room, and more importantly, away from his precious liquor cabinet, to join his squad for a day of 'beach time merriment,' as Lussuria had joyously dubbed it.

So naturally, it was time for Squalo abuse.

"Get your fat ass foot off my head!" Squalo yelled up at his boss from his little 'Squalo's face'-shaped crevice in the sand. Instead, Xanxus opted to stand directly on top of him, giving him a higher vantage point as he scoured the beachfront for a decent (shady) place to set their crap down. More accurately, for Levi to set their crap down, as he was the one forced to be the pack mule on this little excursion.

The man was concentrating hard on balancing the massive umbrella they brought for shade, along with the cooler, which was packed to the brim with sodas, waters bottles, and of course, booze galore. Not to mention another cooler with their lunch, and everyone's individual bags, containing sunscreen, toys (that Bel decided the newly reincarnated Arcobaleno _had_ to have), towels, a change of clothes, etc.

Needless to say, the other members made sure to pack unreasonable amounts of junk, even if they didn't need it, just because it was funny watching the conflicting emotions on Levi's face back at the headquarters when Xanxus designated him as the 'shit carrier' and Levi couldn't refuse, even as his eyes took in the growing mountain of things that piled up in front of the limousine.

The thunder/lightning/ whatever guardian's arms were getting numb. He was loyal to his boss, but he prayed desperately for the discerning eye to settle on a spot already before his fucking arms fell off.

"Levi-san, those look heavy." He turned to look down at the last member of the squad, Fran, who came to stand next to him. The squad's rookie surveyed the horizon like he did everything else. Boredly.

"Yeah they are! Oi Fran! Can you gra-"

"Sempaaaaaiii! Aren't you a bit old to be swimming with floaties?" Fran, completely ignoring Levi, casually shouted down the beach to where Belphegor was still hunting for the elusive mist guardian. A comic nerve sprouted from his head at the jab as a group of particularly macho looking guys walked by, snickering at the prince holding 'rainbow flower power' floaties.

"Bel-sempai! These are for babies…your unprincely arms won't fit in those tiny holes." Fran continued after running (read: walking briskly, because Fran doesn't exactly look like a 'runner') down to the edge of the water to the older blonde.

Belphegor growled.

"They aren't for me you ass! They're for Mammon!" The prince ground out in extreme vexation as he savagely roundhouse kicked his 'uncute kohai' out into the deeper part of the sandbar, where a group of attractive girls were huddled gossiping and carrying on.

A couple of them shrieked at the sudden body hurdling into the water in front of them. They were even more shocked when a green-haired boy about their age sprung out of the water, looking relatively unfazed, as if he hadn't just been Chuck Norris'd like sixty feet out to sea.

One of the girls swam up to him as he shook excess water from his minty locks.

"Oh my god! Are you okay?" The girl asked, giving him a once over to check for any visible injuries.

Fran glanced at her nonchalantly.

"I'm okay, Bel-sempai does that all the time." He said, tilting his head to one side to shake the water out of his ear. Some of the girl's friends came over.

"Dude, are you alright?" One blonde asked. Fran nodded in the positive. They all looked completely flabbergasted that this skinny kid was unharmed after being sent literally flying all the way from the shore.

"The fake prince kicks me like that at least once a day. I'm used to it." To Fran, it honestly wasn't that big of a deal. But the growing flock of estrogen was thoroughly amazed. He was immediately thrust into the ample bosom of one pretty redhead.

"You know, you're really cute~!" She giggled annoyingly. The other girls voiced similar things as they crowded around, petting, stroking and generally molesting the poor froggy.

"Uhh…"

"And I bet you're really strong too…" Fran quirked an eyebrow at that. Assuming that they were referring to physical, not mental, strength, what exactly on his 115 pound frame gave them _that_ impression? Nonetheless, he went along with it, shrugging apathetically.

"Yeah, sure." They squealed. Fran just stood there, being smushed into the girl's breasts, and looking awkward. He had no clue how to talk to girls.

* * *

"Great, dumbass. You broke it."

"Well if you hadn't tried to snatch it from me when I was holding all that stuff, I wouldn't have dropped it!"

"Way to go trash. Now I'm gonna get sunburnt."

The three hitmen stared down in a dejected looking circle at the remains of the umbrella that was _supposed _to give them shade. It sat in a broken heap, bent in the middle where Levi had fallen on it after dropping it.

Xanxus punched Squalo on the back of the head violently.

"How are you gonna fix this? It's your fuckin' fault he fell on it." The leader hissed at him. Squalo looked incredulous.

"Voi, what do you expect me to do? Stand over you with the umbrella like a fuckin' palm tree? It was an accident!" Xanxus gave him a pointed look. Squalo immediately regretted what he just said.

"I ain't doin' it." Squalo snarled, only to silence himself when he was looking down at the barrel of a hand gun.

"Do it. Or I'll kill you." Xanxus had that crazy look on his face that meant 'if you disobey you die,' so Squalo realized he had no choice.

"Well? Get to it trash. I'm burning here." Xanxus smirked at the swordsman in sadistic amusement as he layed his beach chair out on the large spread, snapping at Levi to separate the umbrella from the rod. The thunder guardian handed it to Squalo, a look not unlike envy in his eyes.

Squalo rolled his eyes as he held the umbrella over his boss. If Levi wanted to do this so bad, he was more than welcome. But Xanxus wouldn't be hearing any of it.

* * *

Belphegor stopped for what had to be the seventh or eighth time, rapidly fanning himself. The prince hadn't been to the beach since he was really small, and thus, was finding it difficult to run in sand. Which is exactly what he had been doing for the past hour, as he was still searching for the little mist guardian who had done a damn good job of hiding himself for the day.

The blonde prince sighed. The floaties weren't _that_ ugly, were they?

Just then, he spotted a familiar looking black hood. Belphegor shot over and hurriedly grabbed the little bundle. He immediately received a sound slap in the face.

"Let go of my baby you wackjob!" An older woman screamed at him, clutching the bundle in one hand, beating him viciously on the head with the other, trying desperately to free her baby from the storm guardian's death-grip. Upon looking down, Belphegor realized that it indeed was not Mammon, but an **actual **baby. The small infant's face was contorting into rather grotesque looking faces, which the royal assumed probably meant the baby was going to start-

"AAAAAAAAAHHH!" –crying. The infant had some lung power alright. Belphegor felt like his eardrums were being shredded from the shrillness of the baby's cries, coupled with the mother's high-pitched screaming.

_Ushishi~ Damn this bitch can scream_… Belphegor thought to himself as he simply chucked the baby back at it's mother, muttering a hurried apology for assaulting her and her infant before running off to continue his search for the arcobaleno.

* * *

"Um excuse me…uh..sir? Hello..?"

Xanxus glared up at the frail looking teenager who was blocking his view. The sky guardian had finally just settled into his beach chair, and cracked open a beer. And now this moron was ruining his day all over again.

"Move, trash. You're in the fuckin' way." He grunted out before sipping some beer. The lifeguard wrung his hands together feebly, cursing his luck. It was his first day on the job, and he was already dealing with uncooperative beach-goers.

"Um...but..." The teenager pressed on. Xanxus, who had deemed the little exchange 'over,' completely snubbed the boy in favor of smirking at two chicks who walked by in tiny bikinis who smiled at him seductively, giggling to each other.

"Excuse me…uh...I…"

Xanxus sighed in irritation and motioned to Squalo, who was_ still_ holding the umbrella, to get rid of the annoyance.

"Tell this asshole to get lost, scum."

Squalo just glared down at him in response, but set the umbrella down and marched over to the visibly shaking adolescent, a look of pure annoyance on his face.

"Voi! Can't you take a fuckin hint? GET LOST!" He thundered into the poor boy's face. The lifeguard's knees were literally buckling, but he held his ground.

"I'm s-sorry, but this is a p-p-public beach, you're not allowed to have alcoholic b-beverages here…" The teen managed to stutter out. Squalo just stared/glared at him in frustration and slight disbelief.

"Listen here uh…," Squalo leaned down to read the name imprinted into the boy's lifeguard uniform, "uh…Duncan, Do you know who the hell we are?" He questioned, still glaring irately at the adolescent. The lifeguard, who's name is now Duncan, shook his head in the negative.

"We're the Varia!"

"Um…w-who?" Squalo looked about ready to explode.

"VROIII!- we are the most elite assas-"

"We work for the Vongola." Xanxus cut in lowly. The boy suddenly went pale. They were Vongola's men? Oh crap. Oh crapcrapcrap. No one dared mess with the most powerful mafia family in the world. The terrified Duncan now realized the severity of his infraction.

"So if you don't mind, please leave us alone now, honey~! Your totally blocking my sun!" Lussuria piped up from his spot just outside the range of the umbrella, were up until the lifeguard came and stood directly in his sun, he had been happily soaking up the rays.

"Yeah! Move it or lose it clown, before I stab you in the balls!" Squalo threatened. The poor teen nearly shit his pants. He ran off screaming back to his lifeguard post, where an angry and frightened looking woman was waiting. She immediately demanded he call the police, telling him that a baby-stealing pervert was loose on the beach, and had almost stolen her precious Antonio.

* * *

Lussuria woke up feeling wonderfully refreshed. The martial artist stretched languidly as he sat up, admiring the darkened skin along his chest and arms. After a nice lunch, he would tan the other side. He ran up to the other cooler they brought, which was packed with subs he made that morning.

"Boys~! Time for lunch!" He called, unpacking the sub labeled for himself. Salami and turkey with lettuce, onions, black olives, and just a _dash_ of salt and pepper, and a bit of vinegar and olive oil. Perfect!

Mammon suddenly materialized to his left, looking a bit distraught.

"Is he here?" The baby questioned.

"Who, sweetie?" Lussuria asked back curiously. Mammon looked from side to side anxiously, before he turned back to Lussuria in a hushed tone.

"Bel! He's determined to make me wear those ridiculous floaties he brought with him." The baby almost whined in frustration. For the past two hours, he had been trying to avoid the persistent blonde, who remained hot on his tail, despite the countless illusions he had cast to throw him off track.

"Oh my~!" Lussuria slapped a hand daintily to his cheek in 'shock.' He looked mildly amused at the arcobaleno's plight.

"It's not funny, Lussuria. He's like a bloodhound…he just keeps finding me!" The baby said, looking comically aggrieved. There was suddenly a loud shout behind the two. Mammon grimaced.

"AH HA! Gotcha!"

"Muuuuu…" Was all the baby could say as a familiar hand clutched his tiny body tightly, not allowing for any escape. He turned to face Bel's six million watt victory smile.

"The prince has got you now! Ushishi~!" He said, immediately slapping the god-awful floaties on Mammon's teeny arms and ran down to the water to frolic like a five year old. The mist guardian looked slightly suicidal, whispering something that to Lussuria, sounded suspiciously like 'fuck my life' as the the prince inelegantly belly-flopped into the water, laughing.

Lussuria smiled placidly. Fighting was fun, and he was proud of his work as an elite hitman for the Vongola, but a break was nice every now and then. It was days like this he enjoyed the most. When they could all just relax and be normal people.

He turned back to his boss and the others who remained up on the shore.

"Are you all hungry?" He asked as they all nodded, indicating that they were. Carefully unpacking everyone's individual subs, he delicately handed them out before turning to his own and dug in.

* * *

"This is embarrassing." Mammon said in a deadpan voice. If one more person swam up to them asking if he was the prince's son, or to tell them how adorable he was, the mist guardian was going to drown himself. Belphegor just laughed lightly.

"Shishi~! You look so cute Mammon!" He said jovially, playfully splashing the cranky baby with a bit of the salty water. The arcobaleno sputtered, despising the taste of the seawater in his mouth and glared at the blonde, who was still snickering.

Belphegor suddenly rubbed his growling stomach. He was starving after his little 'Mammon hunt.' He remembered that Lussuria had made sandwiches for lunch, and almost drooled. The Muay Thai expert made the best tuna salad subs in the world. Besides, his hands were getting pruny.

So, with that, the prince scooped the mist guardian up and made a bee-line for their spot on the beach.

* * *

After a quiet but pleasant lunch, the members of the Varia sat relaxing under the umbrella, which Squalo had somehow configured to stand back on the crooked rod, since his arms were exhausted from holding up the heavy parasol for the past three hours. He now sat finally enjoying his own lunch, while everyone else had a cold drink in hand.

Mammon groaned as he twisted his little head this way and that, trying to avoid the tip of the bendy straw Belphegor was hell-bent on ramming into his tiny mouth. He hated soda, but apparently the blonde prince forgot that little detail, finally jamming the straw into the infant's mouth.

"Beru, ihuma suuta!" The baby tried to mouth out around the annoying straw. Belphegor just smiled at him evilly. He was well aware that Mammon hated soda, but this was the just punishment he felt the baby deserved for making the prince look for him all day.

Xanxus sighed, almost peacefully, and he took another swig of his third beer that day. He was actually glad, though he would never admit it, that his posse had forced him to come with them. Sitting in that stuffy castle all day with nothing to do did try his patience sometimes. He momentarily removed his baseball cap to wipe a bit a sweat off of his tan brow.

A sudden gust of wind blew the hat out of the sky guardian's hand.

"Huh?" He gasped out in slight surprise. He hadn't been expecting that. The red cap was carried down the shore, and finally landed about fifteen feet out in the water. Xanxus hated swimming, so he just shrugged and returned to his beloved alcohol.

Levi, however, was stunned at the audacity the wind had to blow **his** boss's hat away. The man shot up, tearing off his loose fitting sweatpants to reveal a tiny black speedo with the words 'Property of Xanxus-sama' imprinted on the rear.

'Xanxus-sama' promptly spit out his back-washed beer in Squalo's hair. The swordsman was too stunned at the sight before him to notice.

"What the fu-" He started to shout as Levi turned back to them, looking oddly like a soldier about to rush into battle. The thunder guardian kneeled proudly in front of his boss, giving his unwitting comrades a perfect view of his rather…unsightly, 'situation' up front.

"Don't worry boss! I'll get it for you!" He said 'bravely' as he ran down to the shore and threw himself into the water gracelessly. Belphegor was howling in laughter.

"Did Levi stuff a dead cat in there or something? Ushishishishi! Holy shit!" the blonde prince fell over clutching his toned stomach, shaking from laughter. Mammon was too ill to his stomach to laugh.

"I did NOT need to see that." The baby slapped a tiny palm to his face as he readjusted his hood.

The bumbling man returned a few minutes later, soaking wet, valiantly presenting the now unwanted hat to his disgusted looking boss.

"I don't want it now, scum. It's all wet. And put your fuckin' pants back on, you're embarrassing me." Xanxus snubbed the hat disdainfully. Levi looked completely destroyed. Again, his efforts to please his wonderful boss went unrewarded.

Squalo looked up at him from his spot on the ground, still wiping away droplets of beer, which had begun to drip onto his handsome face, away. He stared directly at the front of the tiny speedo with unbridled repugnance.

"Hey Levi, it's called manscaping goddammit! I suggest you try it sometime!"

"Ushishi~!" The prince burst into another raucous fit of giggles.

"It'll take more than that to tame that raging bush-a-saurus! Hey ugly, try a weedwacker!" The prince fell over again in laughter. Levi was clueless, but re-clothed himself anyway.

A sudden shriek garnered the hitman squad's attention.

"There he is officer! That's the maniac that tried to take my baby!" Belphegor immediately ceased his laughter as a burly looking officer stomped over to him, the woman from earlier right behind him, still clutching her infant for dear life.

"Fuuuuck…gotta go! Ushishi~! See you guys later!" The prince shouted as he ran away, with the policeman and baby-woman hot on his tail. The others just laughed, except Levi, who was still trying to figure out what he needed a weedwacker for.

In the midst of all the chaos, Fran finally made his return, looking like one of those American rappers, with his entourage of scantily clad beauties. His lithe arms were casually slung around the shoulders of the blonde and redhead from earlier. The rest of their friends followed behind, talking and giggling.

"Yo." He waved as the others stared at him in a weird mixture of surprise, indifference, confusion and annoyance.

"Where the hell have you been?" Squalo asked the mint haired youth. Fran motioned to his 'harem' with a slight jerk of his head.

"After the stupid fake prince kicked me in the water, these nice girls came to see if I was okay, and we hit it off and I hung out with them for the rest of the day." He looked around, noticing the absence of the blonde prince.

"I wanted to introduce them to Bel-sempai so I could rub it in his face. Where is he?" He asked, still glancing around. Lussuria sat up.

"Oh he's being chased by the police~." The flamboyant man said as if he were talking about the weather. A couple of the girls gasped, but Fran, naturally, was unaffected by the news.

"Oh, okay. I guess we'll wait until he gets back." He shrugged and sat down in the sand, the group of girls immediately crowding around him.

"Well would you look at that. The damn runt can pick up chicks. Hehe." Squalo laughed at the irony.

At that moment, the ripper prince made his appearance, having put some distance between himself and the cop and the 'bitch with the baby,' as he had aptly named her. He rested his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath.

"Sempaaaaaii…" The prince twitched as he looked up at Fran, thin blonde eyebrows rising up at the sight of the five or six gorgeous women surrounding the apathetic boy. Fran just waved like it was a daily occurrence for him to be in the presence of potential supermodels.

"Hey fallen prince, I want to introduce you to my new friends." Belphegor stalked over, arms folder over his chest, smirking down at the skinny arm still slung around the busty red head's shoulders. Fran really thought he had a one up on the prince?

_We'll see about that._ Bel thought to himself.

"What are you doing with my boyfriend?" He asked snarkily. The girls immediately looked at Fran, some in shock, and some, particularly the redhead, in slight revulsion. The slasher prince continued, taking a page right out of Lussuria's book.

"Yeah honey, that's **my** little Franfran you've got your fake ass titties all over. Sorry to tell you, he must have hit his head or something. But, uh, he loves dick. Specifically mine. Shishi~"

"Oh my God!"

The girl looked insulted. She slapped Fran's arm away as she stomped off, muttering something about being touched by fags, followed by the rest of her friends, but not before smacking the blonde prince in the face for the jab at her very real cleavage. Belphegor growled, but surprisingly let it go, in favor of stabbing Fran with the knife he had hidden…somewhere on his person.

"Sorry to ruin your date, Froggy, but the prince had to exact his revenge for earlier. Ushishi~!" Belphegor chortled as he repeatedly poked Fran's pale back with the tip of the knife. Fran just looked indifferent.

"Sempai, that was mean. Why'd you have to chase away my friends? Just because you have a low self-esteem-"

Stab.

"Oh by the way, her breasts are _quite_ real." A ghost of a smirk flitted onto the illusionist's face at the 'how-would you know' look the now irritated prince was giving him. He just flashed him a victory sign.

Xanxus suddenly sat up and stretched. He motioned to all of the Varia's collective junk lying around their spot.

"Alright assholes, let's pack it up. I'm tired."

* * *

The trip back was silent, as almost everyone had fallen asleep immediately after the black limousine pulled onto the road. Mammon, of course, was curled up in Belphegor's lap. The prince had taken to laying on Fran, who leaned up against the window, using his trademark frog hat as a pillow. Lussuria lay to his right, snuggled up in a ball on the seat cushion.

On the other side Levi sat staring out the opposite window, looking rather put out. Next to him, a few feet away, Squalo was laying shoulder -to-shoulder with Xanxus with their heads knocked together. They were both snoring loudly.

Levi pouted. Next time they went to the beach, he would make sure the boss slept on him!

* * *

Chapter seven is finished! Read and Review, or Levi will smother you with his raging Bush-a-saurus! Until next time!


	8. Rock Out with the Prince

A/N: Hey guys! SushiBomb here with the next chapter of Phases of Accidia! I feel really awful. I realized right after I posted the last chapter that I forgot to comment on the epic review left to me by my fellow Team Sleep fan, Lemming Queen. Ryohei would be beside himself with your EXTREMELY EXTREME USE OF THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON!

L.Q., I gotta say, I was having such a crappy day, I had just gotten into a huge argument with one of my friends, and was in a shittastic mood that night and when I got home and read that awesome review you wrote, I was actually in tears. It really made my night. Thanks a lot, and thanks to everyone else who reviewed as well.

Ahem, pardon my angst-fest…So chapter 8… I think my theme for November is music, because a) chapter 6: based on a song, b)my other story, Dancing in the Dark, also based on a couple of songs, and music will be a major part later, and c) this chapter, is all about Bel's taste in, you guessed it, music!

Warnings: Shonen ai kind of…Bel x Xanxus (What! It's an interesting pairing!), OOC Xanxus, because admittedly, he is like the most impossible character to write.( You'd have a hard time too with a character who's face always looks like this =( ) And… um, that's basically it.

So, on with P.O.A.!

Disclaimer: SushiBomb does not own jackshit, don't make fun of her.

* * *

VIII. Rock out with the Prince

Xanxus cursed under his breath for what had to be the seventieth time that hour. Wet towel and windex in hand, the sky guardian stood on a step ladder in the middle of the hallway that led to his room and personal lounge, wiping off the pictures and mirrors that hung from the walls. Out of all of his assigned chores for the day, this had to be his _least_ favorite. Not because it was difficult, on the contrary, it was the simplest of his appointed tasks. It just took forever, and it was incredibly boring.

After almost an hour of wiping each of the several dozen frames, mirrors, etc. that dotted the absurdly long hall, if Xanxus did say so himself, and he **did, **the Varia boss moodily chucked the now dust-covered towel back into the bucket he had dragged along with him. Stretching languidly, he yawned as he picked up the bucket to move on to the next hallway over.

Saturdays at the Varia headquarters were labeled as 'cleaning day.' Of course, they had staff to do things like that on the weekdays, but when the maids and butlers went home on the weekends to visit family or run errands or whatever they did with their free time, the officers of the elite organization were left alone to fend for themselves. Lussuria had said it would be their 'bonding time,' to which of course everyone either 'booed' or rolled their eyes.

Aside from cleaning their bedrooms top to bottom, they each had a list of assigned duties for the day. As a lover of cooking, Lussuria naturally took the job of maintaining the kitchen, and also did the laundry. Levi, as the physically strongest of the group, handled the outside chores, such as mowing the grass, and maintaining the gardens.

Squalo swept the floors, and vacuumed the rooms that had carpets. The swordsman would make sure to complain (loudly, mind you) every single week about how they really needed to get tiled floors in the larger rooms. Belphegor would always argue with him on that point, because it was his job to mop the floors, and therefore requested that there **not** be more tiled rooms. The prince was also responsible for dusting off the multitudes of vases, art work, and various other knick-knacks around the base.

As the (literal) baby of the group, Mammon was not able to provide much assistance in the way of physical labor. Instead, the infantile illusionist was appointed the task of managing the family's finances. The avaricious mist guardian was unparalleled in his understanding of financial processes, and thus was given the task of making sure the bills were paid on time, as well as periodically reviewing financial documents and tax forms.

Mammon was also in charge of making sure the Vongola's money was put to good use. The baby handled the various investments made by the famiglia, and whether it be stocks or mutual funds, Mammon always made sure to turn a nice profit for the Vongola.

Xanxus, suprisingly, even did his fair share, despite being the boss, and thus being allowed to say 'fuck off, I ain't doing it' if he really wanted to. The others chalked it up to the fact that Xanxus was a proud man, and refused to be seen as a freeloader. Plus, he didn't let anyone in his room.

"One down, three to go." Xanxus groaned to himself as he stood at the mouth of the southern wing of the castle, spraying a new towel with windex, and prepping his arms for another round of repetitive circular wiping.

He was making his way over to the first window, resigned to this fate when he heard someone singing, quite loudly, down the hall. It sounded very familiar. Dropping his bucket on the floor, Xanxus walked down the hall to see who it was, and tell them to shut the hell up, because his head was hurting.

_A friend in needs a friend indeed,__  
__A friend with weed is better,__  
__A friend with breasts and all the rest,__  
__A friend who's dressed in leather_

The singing got louder as he got closer. The sky guardian finally made it to the room at the end of the hall and peaked his head in. Xanxus wasn't sure whether to laugh, or to pinch his nose to prevent a nosebleed. In the middle of the room, the resident genius of the Varia was mopping the floor. Ear buds plugged into his ears, Xanxus could hear whatever he was listening to blaring in the younger man's ears all the way from where he was standing.

_A friend in needs a friend indeed,__  
__A friend who'll tease is better ,__  
__Our thoughts compressed,__  
__Which makes us blessed,__  
__And makes for stormy weather,_

Belphegor was dancing rather provocatively, wrapping his slim leg around the mop, grinding his hips against the pole, belting out lyircs.

_He actually has a pretty good voice_. Xanxus thought to himself, deciding he wouldn't intrude on the storm guardian's fun. Instead, he settled for leaning against the border of the open doorway, arms crossed, and enjoying the little show his subordinate was unwittingly putting on for him.

The blonde soon stopped dancing, pulling his iPod out of his back pocket. He was facing away from Xanxus, intently searching for another song. The Varia boss was surprised that the younger assassin hadn't even felt his presence yet. A sudden noise told the Varia boss that the prince had already made his selection, and from the rhythmic thumping, it sounded like some kind of electronic or techno song.

_Bit by bit my heart breaks  
Your voice repeats, and I can't take it anymore  
Don't compromise  
Save yourself, I'll always be here_

The prince leaned the mop up against the wall, apparently finished, still gyrating his narrow hips seductively, as he pulled out a rag that was hanging from his back pocket and began wiping off one of the vases. Xanxus found himself being hypnotized by the sway of the boy's hips and he suddenly felt like the temperature had raised a couple of degrees, and loosened his tie a bit.

Belphegor, still oblivious to the older man's presence, continued dancing and singing around the room, stopping every so often to wipe something off. Clad in only baggy beige cargo pants, a black wife beater that showed off his lean physique and black socks, the storm guardian looked pretty hot twirling that wet rag around his bandana-covered head like a lasso.

Xanxus decided that he had better leave, lest the storm guardian turn around and catch him perving on him.

* * *

Over the next month or so, Xanxus had begun to make a habit out of watching the blonde prince. He had never noticed before, but Belphegor was quite the music lover. It wasn't just on cleaning days, he soon realized, but all the time that the eighteen year old was singing or humming some tune to himself. When they all went to the gym or had training together, the prince always had his iPod handy, and would sometimes start belting out lyrics randomly. Squalo, of course, would always be ready to tell him to put a sock in it.

At dinner, Xanxus often heard Bel talking to Lussuria about this new song he heard or that song he loved; the two seemed to share the same general tastes in music. He even sang in the shower, as Xanxus had recalled one time he happened to walk by the prince's room and heard some rather erotic lyrics coming from inside. Needless to say, the sky guardian walked a little faster, and for a fleeting moment, wondered if Bel liked to dance in the shower too.

Xanxus also noted, that out of anyone he had ever met, Belphegor had what was quite possibly the most eclectic taste in music he had ever heard. The sky guardian was certain that every time he crossed paths with the younger hitman, he was listening to a different genre of music. He easily switched from rock, to techno, to jazz, to a plethera of others, and seemed to enjoy them all the same.

The prince especially seemed to have an affinity for foreign music. So far, in that one month period, he had heard the man singing in of course italian, but also in english, japanese, german, swedish, russian, and probably more that Xanxus hadn't even heard yet.

One Saturday afternoon, as the group tackled their weekly cleaning duties, Xanxus had once again stumbled upon the royal hitman jamming to himself as he mopped the main foyer.

_Je rigole à souhaits__  
__Et je me dirige au bar, une vodka une téquila, et voilà, et voilà.__  
__L'histoire qui finit, tant pis, la musique elle me sourit et je ferme les yeux,__  
__L'hôtesse se barre, j'm en balance, la musique…__  
__Electronique, électronique, électronique…_

The blonde sang, in flawless french, Xanxus realized, as he wrung excess water out of the mop before slapping it back onto the floor, shaking his derriere in time with the lyrics, sliding the mop to and fro across the floor. Xanxus once again found himself entranced by the younger man. It had become something of a past time for him, and he always made sure no one else was around before engaging in his new favorite activity. By now, the prince had switched from french electronica to an american song…the genre he couldn't really be sure of. Bel swayed his hips side to side slowly as he sang along.

_With her high heel against the wall__  
__Kind of dancing, though not at all__  
__She had stockings running up to her thighs__  
__Snaps her fingers to keep the time_

_From the back of the room I saw her there__  
__I said she wants to be alone and I shouldn't dare__  
__But then she noticed me glance at her__  
__I had no choice but to dance with her_

The prince bobbed his head lightly, lifting the mop back into the bucket, still singing when he turned and saw none other than his boss standing in the doorway, blantantly staring at the prince's undulating hips.

Belphegor smirked to himself.

If there was _anyone_ who saw the opportunity to have some fun and a laugh at someone else's expense, it was most certainly the blonde assassin.

"Hey boss, shishi~, enjoying the show?" He asked playfully, running his pale hand through his golden locks, dancing up to the sky guardian. Xanxus looked uncharacteristically mortified. He was so entranced by the boy that he had been caught staring!

Quickly putting on his most menacing face, Xanxus scoffed.

"What the hell are you talking about, scum?" He grunted out. The prince saw right through the façade, however. He wrapped his arms around the Varia leader's neck, pouting.

"Aww, you don't like my dancing? You're always watching me, so I thought you did. So I made sure to be sexy for boss. Ushishi~!" The prince giggled as he twirled a lock of dark, unruly hair around his pointer finger.

Xanxus was effectively scandalized. _He knew? This whole time? _ For one of the few times in his young life, the sky guardian was actually embarrassed. And all that time, he thought he was being stealthy, but really, the prince was just an attention whore, and therefore pretended not to notice his boss watching him all the time.

Belphegor could tell by the rapidly changing expressions on the man's face that he had come to that realization, and laughed lightly. The song he was listening to changed to a slower, more sensual song. The prince sang along lowly in Xanxus's ear, leaning his blonde head on his shoulder.

"Dance with me, boss." The younger assassin whispered, before pressing much closer to the older man, grinding his hips against Xanxus's, singing along to the low, husky tone of the song.

_Turn around it's criminal__  
__When you see me tremble__  
__Oh you're on a mission inside the situation__  
__And you're looking at the pieces_

_Shiver Xing__  
__Shiver Shiver Xing__  
__Shiver shiver X_

_Really got to break through__  
__Shiver Xing__  
__Really got to come around__  
__When are you going to learn__  
__When are you going to see__  
__When are you going to be_

Xanxus had never felt so awkward in his life. He just stood there like a board as the young prince danced with him, or on him, to be more accurate. The sky guardian was having an extremely difficult time in keeping his composure as it was, and Belphegor's less than innocent grinding wasn't making it any easier.

The prince hummed the rest of the song, while lazily playing with feather hair accessory Xanxus was so fond of. The older man was stiff in Bel's half-embrace. When the song finished, he released him, smiling his usual trademark grin. But something in his smile, to Xanxus, seemed a bit more predatory than usual. The prince's hidden gaze trailed down Xanxus's lean body, until it rested on his…

The Varia boss realized then that he was hard. He looked back up at Belphegor in rarely seen alarm, sputtering quite comically.

"I…uh…it's not…um…" As much as he struggled, there was nothing he could say that would make this situation any less awkward. Not that it mattered, as the prince hadn't even been paying attention. The blonde's lips curled impishly. He all but stalked over to his boss, still staring at the prominent tent in the older man's pants with something akin to…pride?

"The prince wouldn't expect anything less. I'm a _very _good dancer, after all. Ushishi~!" Belphegor whispered huskily, before doing the unthinkable. As he walked by, he leaned over and gave the bulge a good squeeze, earning a surprised gasp from his boss, and then just sauntered off, completely blasé, to finish the rest of his chores.

Xanxus tried desperately to calm his frazzled nerves, among other things. His face felt unfamiliarly hot. Looking in the mirror, he realized, with absolute horror, that he was blushing.

His mind still reeling from the intense sensation of having his arousal groped so unabashedly, Xanxus smiled to himself. He had a feeling that just now, Belphegor was talking about **another** kind of dancing. He discovered something else about the blonde prince that day.

Belphegor was a _tease_. And he loved it.

* * *

Jesus, I fail so hard at endings it isn't even funny. But you know, I just love writing Bel like that, all seductive and come hither lmao … anyway as a bonus, I present to you now…

Ta-Dah! Bel's Royal Playlist! (Yes, I DO have a playlist just for this chapter, and that is what it is titled on my iPod, cuz I'm so cool lol NOT)

1. Pure Morning- Placebo

2. 1000 Transmissions- Ayria

3. La Musique- Riot in Belgium

4. Out of Control- She wants Revenge

5. Shiver X- The Secret Meeting

So you know what to do, well aside from illegally downloading Bel's Royal Playlist, of course. Review silly! Or Bel will grind on you! Well in that case, don't review, because I'm sure you wouldn't mind that at all. I certainly woudn't complain. *winkwink*


	9. For those of Superior Intelligence

A/N: Oya Oya! Sushi*Bomb here with the long-awaited (not really, but I like to tell myself that lol) Chaper 9 of Phases of Accidia. I have pretty much beaten Writer's Block's ass, thanks to C.I. which is a blast to write, and encourage anyone reading it to try it out. The idea behind the fic, that is.

No warnings or anything for this chapter…just read it and love it. *Thumbs up*

Disclaimer: Sushi*Bomb does not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. I could never be as awesome as Akira Amano.

* * *

IX. For those of Superior Intelligence

"Hey trash, did you get the answer to number #17 yet?" Xanxus asked, relatively placid for once. The Varia boss scratched at his dark locks in irritation. Squalo looked up from his own paper with a comically blank expression. He simply shook his head slowly from side to side, as if the irksome assignment had fried his brain to the point where he could only utilize his most basic motor skills.

"Nah…I think I'm gonna skip it." The silverette yawned obnoxiously, leaning back in his chair to crack his back. Xanxus growled lowly, but went back to staring at his paper. He glared heatedly at the question whose answer seemed to elude both him and his friend.

The two commanders of the elite assassination squad were currently sitting in the library in the eastern wing of the Varia base, doing their homework. Yes, their homework. Even though the Varia were a group of feared and respected assassins, they were still in their teens, and as such, Nono still expected them to get a sound education. Thus, the members of the squad were all homeschooled at the base, and therefore, homework.

"Voi! Ya think Lussuria got the answer?" Squalo whispered, chewing on the end of his pencil. Xanxus snorted, shaking his head.

"Hell no. Lussuria hasn't even opened the book yet." The two laughed at the flamboyant teen, and his blatant disregard of the subject of mathematics.

After a while, the two teens sat staring at their almost complete homework. That one bloody question still unanswered. Squalo found the obvious blank space for the question most aggravating. Xanxus shared his sentiments, to an extent.

"Do you think Ms. Fabiola will care if we skip one?" The shark asked in resignation. Xanxus shrugged.

"I don't give a shit."

Squalo sighed in agreement; chuckling a bit as Belphegor casually strode into the room, looking terribly bored. The little boy came and sat at the table next to Squalo, who groaned in annoyance at the child's presence.

"What're you doing here runt? Did you finish your homework already?" The shark asked with a disapproving glance at the nintendo something or other in the ten year old's hands. Belphegor nodded his head, rapidly pressing the little buttons on the game. The device suddenly began to beep, apparently signaling that the prince had won the round. With a sigh, the boy turned off the game.

"Yeah, the prince finished it a long time ago. It was really easy." Belphegor said as he rested his blonde head in folded arms. He cast a glance at the open textbooks and scattered papers with mathematical equations scribbled on them. The prince sat up to lean over Squalo's paper.

"What are you guys doing?" He asked, staring intently at the problems. Squalo glared at the boy who was invading his personal space.

"Calculus. Wanna try it?" He asked sardonically. To his surprise, the blonde child nodded his head with genuine gusto, quickly slapping a palm over the textbook and dragged it over to his spot.

"Derivatives?" The boy said curiously. Xanxus and Squalo shared a disbelieving look as the young royal began to read the section in the book, looking abnormally fascinated for a ten-year old. The sky boss was amazed the kid could actually _say _the word, let alone try to comprehend what it meant. Squalo shook his head at the boy's antics. He leaned back in the chair with his arms lazily folded over his lean chest.

"So anyway, math's done. What else did we have for today?" Xanxus glanced over his to-do list intently, shoulders immediately sagging when he saw his least favorite subject circled. He frowned back up at the younger teen.

"Chemistry." Squalo actually hissed. He really hated chemistry. Xanxus laughed loudly at the second in command's fervent dislike of the subject as he pulled the heavy textbook out of his bag.

"Might as well get to it." He said. Squalo nodded in reluctant agreement, yanking his own book out from his backpack. Belphegor suddenly made a contented sound as he set the large math book down.

"Done!" The prince beamed, very proud of himself. The two older teens laughed.

"What're you so happy about runt? Did you actually get it or something?" More laughter. Belphegor pouted, nodding his head. Squalo snorted, before bursting into a fit of raucous guffaws at the kid. Xanxus, who was a bit calmer, looked at the young blonde, chuckling.

"Kid, this is big boy math. There's no way in hell you could understand it. Give it another six years, and then we'll see." The sky guardian said, before giving in and laughing with the silverette, who at this point was collapsed in a heap on top of the table, still shaking with hyena-like chortles.

Belphegor glared at the two. Why was it so funny that he understood this retard math? The prince shrugged. Maybe they were jealous because they're both dumb. Deciding that that had to be the reason, the prince looked at Squalo's paper again, specifically at the irritatingly blank problem in the middle of the paper.

Gingerly plucking the pencil out of Squalo's hand, the prince pulled the paper over to him. He pressed a finger to his mouth as he pondered the problem for a minute.

_Find the derivative using the power rule._The prince read over the directions in the large textbook again to make sure he understood what the question required, and then set to work solving the problem.

Squalo's laughter was finally beginning to die down. He hadn't meant to laugh so hard, but the pure look of excitement on the kid's face at _math_ of all things, the idea was just hysterical. The two older teens took calming breaths, before attempting to return to their dreaded chemistry homework.

Xanxus absently glanced in the royal child's direction, and did a double-take. The young prince had taken Squalo's paper and was pouring over the problem that they had left blank, a look of pure concentration on his face. The tip of a little pink tongue was poking out of the corner of Bel's mouth as he rapidly scribbled a mess of numbers and letters in the alotted space for the question.

And he actually looked like he knew what he was doing.

By this time, Squalo had stopped his eternal damning of chemistry and had also taken to watching the blonde boy. Every so often, the kid would groan in mild frustration or let out a little 'damn,' and erase something on the paper hurriedly, before returning to his dizzyingly fast calculating.

Xanxus and Squalo both sat with their mouths hanging open.

After a few minutes, Belphegor sat back in the seat, rubbing his tired hand with a satisfied smile. He slid the paper back to Squalo, who looked like he was trying to catch flies with his mouth. The swordsman looked over the boy's chickenscratch, contemplating the sloppy mess in growing astonishment.

This kid actually taught himself **Calculus** in less then ten minutes? …Holy shit.

Belphegor and Xanxus stared at him expectantly. Squalo hastily grabbed the textbook and flipped to the back of the book, searching for the answer to the question.

He made an odd strangled noise when he found it.

The two others leaned in closer. The silverette looked over at the child next to him, shock written all over his handsome face.

"It's right."

A chair abruptly scraped against the floor as Xanxus stood up and walked over to Squalo and Bel's side of the table.

"Lemme see that, trash." The Varia boss said, snatching the paper out of his second in command's hand and read it over himself. Dark eyebrows rose up in surprise. The older teen turned the textbook to face him and searched for the answer.

He looked dumbfounded.

The two teens stared at Belphegor, who had evidently grown bored with all of the amazement and shock, and opted instead to play the next round of his video game.

Xanxus couldn't believe it. All the kid did was read over the chapter, on a subject he had never seen in his life, and he not only understood it, but could apply it that quickly?

The kid was a fucking genius.

* * *

Over the years, the extent of Belphegor's mental acuity became much more apparent. Not only was the boy gifted with the ability of learning and processing information, both simple and complex, at supernatural speeds, but also possessed a photographic memory so detailed that Squalo had at one point believed Belphegor was some kind of robot-humanoid lifeform.

Once, the young blonde had been assisting Lussuria in the kitchen, because, as they had soon discovered, Belphegor was one of those kids who needed to be constantly stimulated and challenged. The prince had been helping the martial artist cook a very difficult dish that he had wanted to try for sometime, and would need help.

Lussuria noted that Belphegor had only _briefly_ skimmed over the recipe in the book, without much interest or enthusiasm.

As the flamboyant man began adding the ingredients, he required the blonde to read each step to him. Which he did efficiently, as was usual of the prince. But the Muay Thai fighter actually took off his sunglasses to stare at the zestless prince in unabashed shock when he realized later that the book was sitting on the counter next to him, and the Belphegor had been walking around the kitchen, doing various other things. He had not come to the book once.

The boy had recited an almost seven page recipe, exactly, down to the precise measurements and cooking times, from memory, after just a _glance_?

* * *

The boy really was nothing short of amazing. The other Varia members knew they were intelligent; a general requirement of being a hitman was being intelligent to some degree. But Belphegor was in league all his own. If the blonde had even the _slightest_ interest in a subject, he would hole himself up in the library for days, pouring over every nanobyte of information until he could tell you pretty much anything you wanted to know about it.

Squalo remembered once when they were gathered in the lounge, just relaxing, and Belphegor was working on a game in the newspaper. Sudoku, if he recalled correctly. Levi had walked in frustrated, as per usual, holding a book of crossword puzzles. The silverette remembered the lightning guardian had asked him the Latin term for the 'eye of hell' (What kind of weird question was that anyway?)

"Ocularis Infernum." The fifteen year old said absently, not even glancing up from his puzzle, which he was already halfway finished with. Levi looked from the prince to the sixteen blank boxes on the paper, to the prince again, before filling them in quickly with an incredulously muttered 'damn.'

So the kid knew Latin too? Not surprising.

Squalo snorted to himself in mild disbelief and amusement when he later noticed the newspaper Belphegor was reading was in Russian. He wasn't sure the prince had even noticed he was reading in a completely different language.

* * *

It became a past time for members of the Varia to ask the prince the most obscure questions when they were bored, just to see if Belphegor happened to know the answer.

"Voi brat, what's the name of this galaxy?"

"The Milky Way, duh."

"Hey Bel, what are the first seventeen numbers in pi?"

"3. 1415926535897932."

"Hey trash, how do you spell -?"

"P-S-E-U-D-O-A-N-T-I-D-I-S-E-S-T-A-B-L-I-S-H-M-E-N-T-A-R-I-A-N-I-S-M."

The older members of the group found some kind of weird enjoyment in deliberately asking the blonde boy the most random questions they could think of. It amazed them that ninety-nine percent of the time, the kid actually knew the answer. And when he didn't know, he would promptly run to the library and search for it until he did.

As they all got older, Belphegor began applying that superhuman brain of his to engineer brilliant tactical ploys. When they went out on assignment, it was usually the prince who would rapidly calculate their advantages and disadvantages, and quickly map out and devise a plan to get them in and out as quickly as possible, while efficiently carrying out their mission.

But for all his staggering mental capabilities, there were often times when Belphegor blurred the lines between intelligence, insanity, and plain retardation.

One year, during a particularly spartan training session gone wrong, the prince had somehow fallen off the roof of the Varia headquarters and broken his collarbone in four places. Understandably, the blonde was in an excrutiating amount of pain, and Xanxus knew that Morphine could only go so far…

But honestly.

In what universe was purposely injuring yourself to relieve pain considered a _good_ idea?

Xanxus recalled the nurses in the infirmary having to literally strap the blonde hitman down to the bed after he slashed up his leg and poured alcohol on the wound. Xanxus had never up until then, and from that point on, ever heard Belphegor scream. That must've hurt like a **bitch**.

When Xanxus and the others questioned him later, Belphegor simply said that by slashing his leg he was redirecting his brain's attention to the most recent and significant area of pain, thereby temporarily relieving the severe throbbing of his mending collarbone. It was hard to argue with logic like that, what with the kid explaining the nerves and brain signals, using all those big medical words. That is, until Bel said that he said got the idea from an episode of House M.D.

At that point Xanxus facepalmed.

It was true that geniuses really have no common sense.

* * *

*Sigh* Sorry if the ending seems a little rushed. I have to start prepping my laptop (A.K.A. hiding all of my yaoi porn XD) for maintenance tomorrow! Yay and boo. Yay because my laptop will stop acting fucktarded, and boo because I'll be without my baby for the weekend, so I can't obsessively check my FFN account to see if anyone faved or reviewed my poorly written stories. LOL.

One other thing. The document manager is really really FAIL. It keeps deleting the word and it's really pissing me off.

Yeeeeah…anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Just in case anyone is curious, I actually do have a couple of friends who are in the genius I.Q. range, and a few tidbits in the story are based on things they've done or experienced firsthand. It's pretty cool. As always, read and review, or Belphegor will come slash your leg and pour alcohol on it. With a smile.

L8r dewds. Sushi*Bomb out! See ya when I see ya.


	10. Angels in the Snow

A/N: Hey guys, Sushi*Bomb here, and I come bearing Chapter 10 of Phases of Accidia! Huzzah!

I want to thank everyone who reviews my stories, I always love to read your feedback. I'm working on D.I.T.D. and C.I.! And I should have those chapters up soon, I promise!

Okay, so I was writing to get into the holiday spirit, and this was supposed to be cute and light-hearted, and somehow became something completely different. Nonetheless, I must say that I am more proud of this piece than anything else I've written so far. I'm warning you now, it gets pretty dark towards the end.

Oh, BTW. This one-shot has the highest word count so far, at 6,335 words. Cool huh?

Warnings: This is my first time introducing an OC, but please don't click that back button! I know some people hate OC's (I know I do), but for the purpose of the story…aya! Just read it!

*Sigh* Alright. On with Chapter 10.

Disclaimer: Sushi*Bomb does not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Now GTFO.

* * *

X. Angels in the Snow

* * *

One winter afternoon, Belphegor was strolling down a busy street after completing a rather easy assignment. With his hands stuffed in the deep pockets of his Varia trenchcoat, and the fur-lined hood drawn up over his crown of gold, the nine-year old yawned as he trudged down the avenue, rubbing his eye tiredly.

"Man, I'm so freaking bored…maybe I'll just walk around a bit before heading back to base. Ushishi~!" The prince smiled as he turned a corner. The sudden sound of laughter and rough-housing drew him to the entrance of a park.

Belphegor pursed his lips.

Whoever was making all that noise, they were being obnoxiously loud.

The prince curiously peaked his head in through the gate, only to be pelted in the face with a snowball. Belphegor shook the fluffy white snow out of his hair angrily, simultaneously whipping out one of his knives. Whoever threw that snowball is in **deep shit**.

The royal child growled as he stalked over to a clearing, where a group of kids were engaged in a snowball fight. Belphegor scanned the crowd of children, trying to single out the moron who was about to lose his guts.

At least he _was_, until…

_POOF!_

The blonde hissed, wiping the cold wet snow off of his pale face, enraged at the person's balls. How dare they pelt **Prince Belphegor** with a bloody snowball! Did they know who they were messing with? A couple of boys ran over to the fuming prince. Belphegor prepped his knife.

"Hey blondie, get the hell outta the way!" A black haired boy yelled as he skidded to a stop in front of the young assassin. Belphegor glared at the boy snobbishly.

"Who threw that snowball at me?" The prince seethed out, pushing back his hood to shake a lone clump of snow out of his hair. He immediately heard a few snorts and giggles. He stared the lot of them down ferociously. They _dare_ laugh at a prince?

One of the boys had the cheek to poke his tiara, pushing it further down the side of his thick hair.

"Nice crown! What are you, some kind of princess? HA!" The dark haired boy sneered condescendingly, earning rounds of raucous laughter from his friends. Belphegor felt his blood boiling.

_They won't be laughing when they're trying to keep their intestines from spilling out_. The prince thought viciously, gripping the hilt of his oddly shaped knife tightly. One of the other boys stepped forward, tapping Bel on the forehead.

"Hey dumbass, don't you know only girls walk around with fake crowns on?" More laughter. The blonde hitman seethed.

"It's not fake, peasant. I'm a real prince." he said arrogantly, sniffing in disdain. Man, these guys were really asking for it.

"Can you even see us? What's wrong with your hair?" Another boy asked, waving his hand in Belphegor's face. The other boys laughed.

"Maybe he's blind!" The group of boys continued their never-ending round of chortles.

"Wow. You guys must really have a deathwish. Ushishishi~! I'll be more than happy to grant it for you…" The prince smirked, twirling his knife in his hand. The black haired boy stepped up, looking unintimidated. He stood a few inches taller than the blonde hitman.

"What are you gonna do,_ princess_?" He leered down at Belphegor, a malicious glint in his green eyes. Bel's smile curled upward, equally malevolent.

Just then, a female voice called out from behind the boys.

"Mario! Stop it!" A girl around their age yelled out as she ran over to the little altercation. The girl stopped beside the black haired boy, whose name was apparently Mario, her hands resting on her knees, panting lightly from running.

"We're not doing anything, Camilla. We just wanted to see if our new friend here was okay, right guys?" Mario asked, looking for back up from his friends. A chorus of 'yeah' and 'that's right' echoed through the small throng of boys. The girl stood with her hands on her hips, giving the dark-haired boy a disapproving look.

"Don't lie brother! I saw you throw that snowball at him on purpose! Apologize or I'll tell Ana!" Belphegor's eyebrows shot up behind his long bangs. So _this_ was the suicidal one? Man, this kid must really hate his life to throw a snowball at a member of the Vongola Famiglia on purpose and_ then_ try to harass him too.

_Oh well. More fun for the prince. Ushishi_ ~! Belphegor smiled widely as he stepped closer to the arguing pair of siblings. Camilla slapped her brother over the head, yelling out something. Mario growled, but conceded victory to his sister. The boy made a snappy remark before signaling to his band of chronies to follow him. The girl glared at the lot until they disappeared behind some trees.

She turned to face the rather aggravated looking prince.

"I'm sorry about my brother; he can be kind of a jerk sometimes." The girl said, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.

"You should be sorry. Your brother almost lost his balls there." Belphegor 'hmphed,' absently flipping his trademark knife up and down in his hand. Emerald eyes followed the knife curiously, if not a bit apprehensively.

"Uh...um...my name's Camilla-" Flip. Catch. Flip. Catch.

The girl smiled awkwardly, still eyeing the knife.

"What's yours?" Flip. Catch.

Belphegor smirked proudly, admiring the nervous crinkling of the girl's eyes. He sniffed haughtily.

"Shishi~! The name's Belphegor. _Prince _Belphegor. But you hoi polloi can call me _your highness_." He said, extending his pale hand importantly. Camilla just stared at it.

A beat passed.

The prince cleared his throat in irritation, as he shook his hand in her face expectantly. The girl still looked a bit confused.

Belphegor sighed. _Commoners._

"You have to kiss it. I'm a prince." At that, Camilla looked like a lightbulb had gone off in her head.

"You're really a prince? Wow, that's so neat! I've always wanted to meet someone important!" She shouted giddily.

The blonde assassin scoffed, insulted.

"Are you calling the prince a liar?" He asked, his mood souring rapidly at the girl's audacity.

Camilla held up her hands in defense, quickly shaking her head from side to side.

"Oh no, no! I wasn't calling you anything, I swear! It's just…wow. A real life prince. It's a little hard to believe at first. It's a pleasure to meet you!" She said, curtseying politely while placing a feather-light kiss on the prince's hand.

Belphegor smirked arrogantly.

"Yeah, it **is** your pleasure. " The young elite said condescendingly, snatching his hand out of hers. Surprisingly, the girl didn't seem to be the least bit offended by Belphegor's 'holier-than-thou' attitude.

"Oh! I like your crown by the way…it's really pretty." The dark-haired girl smiled anxiously, staring quite intently at the prince.

"What?" Belphegor glared at her, wondering why her face was suddenly all pink. Camilla steered her green eyes hurriedly to the ground, looking quite bashful. The prince was understandably puzzled by this strange girl's actions.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" He questioned again, stepping closer to the black-haired girl. Camilla hid her face in her thick white mittens, giggling shyly.

"Well…you're...that is...you- you're kind of cute!" She shouted out, immediately slapping her hands back over her face after her little declaration. At that, the young prince felt his face heat up.

_Cute? _He thought to himself, feeling ashamed of the blush that he knew was rapidly spreading over his boyish face.

A sudden voice called out from somewhere further inside the park.

"Camilla darling! Time to go home!" A feminine voice rang through the trees. Camilla looked back sadly in the direction of the voice before turning back to Belphegor.

"That's my nanny…I gotta go home now. I'm really sorry about my brother picking on you, but it was nice meeting you! You should come play snowballs with us tomorrow! It'll be fun!" She chirped excitedly.

Belphegor gave her a stupid look.

"I don't have time for silly games in the park." Camilla pouted.

"Aww come on! What could possibly be so important that you don't have time to play?" She asked curiously.

_Xanxus-sama and the Varia._ The prince thought. Outwardly, he shrugged off the question.

"Camilla! Come on! We gotta go!" Belphegor heard the voice of her brother from the opposite end of the park. The dark-haired girl groaned in mild annoyance.

"I'm coming already, hold on!" She shouted back. She grabbed Belphegor's gloved hand, kissing it lightly.

"I hope to see you again tomorrow, Prince Belphegor! Bye!" She said cheerfully as she released the now blushing prince's hand and jogged in the direction of the voices, waving in chipper parting.

Belphegor glanced down at his hand. He swore he could feel it tingling from where Camilla had kissed it before. He felt his face burning even more as he watched her run to an older woman seated on a bench, her brother standing behind her.

He smiled, admiring the contrast of her shiny black hair, which was held up in pigtails against the solid white of her parka and snow boots. Her skin was almost as pale as his own, with long, thick black lashes framing her bright green eyes. A little beauty mark dotted her high cheekbone, giving her an exotic look.

Belphegor stood rooted to his spot. He felt his heart start to race and his breathing become a bit shallow. His head was swirling from a sudden dizziness. The prince had never felt anything like this before.

He willed himself to get moving, before the sun set and he was left wandering around in the dark. As he passed the gate of the park, he looked back over his shoulder, corner of his mouth upturned slightly.

He found himself thinking that Camilla was pretty cute herself.

* * *

"What's up with the shrimp?"

"I dunno. Voi, Mammon, tap him."

"I charge a tapping fee of five dollars."

"!"

Xanxus growled. Why were these pieces of shit talking when he was attempting to explain their next mission to them? He looked up from his plate of steak (cooked rare, because he likes it bloody and mooing) to glare heatedly around the table, trying to find the cause of the disturbance, and shoot their fucking balls off.

The others were staring at the youngest member of their crew, who appeared to be daydreaming. An uncharacteristically serene smile graced the boy's regal face, as he absently twirled his spaghetti noodles around his plate. Xanxus irately threw a bread roll at his face, snapping the prince out of his reverie.

"Hey brat. What the fuck is wrong with you?" The Varia boss ground out moodily as the others laughed at the boy's stunned expression at being randomly hit with a bread roll.

"Huh?"

"We have a mission, pay attention." The grumpy sky boss said sharply. Belphegor nodded quickly, feeling remotely lucky that Xanxus was eating steak, thus marginally improving his usually sour disposition.

The six occupants of the dinner table were silent as Xanxus discussed their newest assignment. Belphegor did his best to listen, but kept slipping into little daydreams involving snowball fights, and a certain dark-haired girl kissing his hands.

* * *

Despite his previous claims of being too busy, Belphegor found himself in the exact same spot in the park the next day, glancing at the time on his cell phone impatiently.

_Where is she?_ He wondered eagerly, waiting a full three minutes before checking his phone again. He was completely unaware of the massive snowball hurtling towards the back of his head at lightning speed.

POOF!

"AAAH!" The prince cried out comically as he was inelegantly toppled to the ground, crown flying off and everything, and landed face first in the snow. He would have been enraged, were it not for the familiar peels of laughter ringing from somewhere directly above him.

The young hitman pulled himself up off the ground, begrudgingly wiping the melting snow of his heated face.

"I can't believe you actually came! I thought you were too busy for silly games in the park?" Camilla asked, giggling as she helped the prince by brushing snow off of his trenchcoat.

Belphegor scoffed.

"Ushishi~! It's not that, I just had nothing better to do today, so I figured I was charitable enough to occasionally humor a peasant." He said arrogantly, looking around for his now missing tiara.

Camilla laughed, staring at him a bit curiously.

"Yes?"

"Nothing…it's just…you talk pretty fancy for a kid." She pointed out. Belphegor shrugged indifferently.

"Well, I am a prince, after all. I was taught to speak properly from when I was little." He said in an elitist tone, shaking his disheveled hair back into place before slapping his tiara back on his head.

Camilla was apparently over the conversation already. The girl, decked out in black today, grabbed his gloved hand excitedly and dragged him towards the clearing from yesterday. Several children their age seemed to be waiting for her to return. Her brother and his friends, to the prince's immense chagrin, were also present.

She waved the lot of them over eagerly.

"Hey guys, this is my new friend Bel!" Belphegor glared at her upon hearing his little nickname.

"My name is _Belphegor_. Not Bel." Camilla turned to him, her smile dimming a bit at his evident dislike of the shortening of his name.

"Yeah, but Bel is easier to say. Plus it sounds cuter." She said, beaming at him. A few of the other kids waved in greeting.

The prince sighed agitatedly, but shrugged it off.

Mario stepped in front of the pack of kids, two huge balls of white balanced perfectly in each hand.

"Alright guys, the snowball fight's officially ON!" The other kids cheered in excitement and growing anticipation. The group of kids was soon split into two teams of four, with Mario and Camilla as the team captains. Of course, the prince was on Camilla's team.

Before running into the trees to hide and plot, Mario smirked at Belphegor, brandishing his snowballs in what the blonde assumed was meant to be an intimidating manner.

Belphegor chuckled wickedly as soon as the boy was out of sight. He couldn't kill the older boy, so he supposed pelting him with snowballs filled with rocks until he cried would have to do.

And pelt him he did.

Over the course of a few hours, Belphegor realized his newly discovered love for snowball fights as he hit kid after kid with perfectly deadly accuracy (that is, after Camilla showed him how to make a snowball correctly, upon noticing the sloppy, lopsided quality to each one the prince constructed prior).

Although, He did reserve the rock filled ones for Mario and his lackeys.

Belphegor couldn't remember the last time he'd had this much fun. He didn't think it was possible to have fun without spilling any blood, but this simple game of throwing snowballs quickly won him over. Aside from killing, this was definitely his new favorite pastime.

As the sun began to set, Belphegor laid in the snow, thoroughly spent. He smiled at the puffs of breath that appeared everytime he exhaled. Camilla lay next to him, arms and legs outstretched. She too was panting lightly.

"Was that your first snowball fight, Bel?" She asked softly, admiring the pinks and oranges of the darkening sky.

Belphegor closed his eyes, inhaling pleasantly.

"Mmhmm."

Camilla rolled over, scooting closer to the blonde. She stared at him, a small smile upon her pallid face.

Feeling like he was being watched, Belphegor opened his eyes and looked back at her, expression hidden behind his sheet of hair.

The dark-haired girl hesitantly reached a hand out and brushed his bangs aside. For some reason, Belphegor felt no reason to stop her.

Her smile widened at seeing the rest of the prince's face. Cool grey locked onto vibrant green. His lips curved upward as well.

"You have pretty eyes." She whispered shyly. Belphegor smiled, just as coyly.

"So do you."

* * *

Day after day was spent in the park, having snowball fights, laughing and rough-housing in the snow with the other kids. Even Mario, who the prince had eventually befriended, despite their initial trepidation. After realizing the mischievous nature they had in common, the two became quite close.

Most of all, Belphegor enjoyed the time he spent with Camilla, who over the course of the week, he quickly developed a rather large crush on. And the feelings definitely seemed to be reciprocated.

He appreciated the fact that she didn't question why he wore his bangs so long. Or why he had knives in his pockets. Or why he laughed so funny, or why he would always change the subject when she would ask him about himself or why he would never let her put his coat on, or why the so-called 'prince' was always wandering around alone.

She never pushed or prodded him for answers. For her, it simply was what it was.

And he liked that. A lot.

* * *

On a particularly frigid January evening, the two nine-year olds stood in front of their newly constructed snowman, adding the finishing touches.

"Camilla you dummy, shishi~! You need a carrot for the nose." The pigtail wearing girl pouted.

"Do you have a carrot then?" She asked, sticking her hand out expectantly. The prince grunted in the negative.

"Hmmph…nope." She laughed lightly, sticking a small bent twig in the spot where the nose was supposed to be. Belphegor noticed that her smile was a bit dimmer than usual.

"Hey Cam?" He began quietly as the two sat up against the trunk of a large tree. She glanced over at the blonde, whose head was partially buried beneath his scarf and the fur-trimmed hood of his coat.

"Yeah?" She asked, snuggling closer to the skinny boy for warmth.

"Are you okay? You seem kind of sad." He said in a voice just above a whisper as he wrapped his arm around her, also snuggling close to gather extra warmth against the rapidly dropping temperature.

She glanced at him with wide eyes. Had she really been that obvious?

Camilla smiled forlornly, playing with the pom-poms at the end of the strings on her boots.

"My daddy's been talking about leaving the country."

Belphegor looked surprised.

"Why?" Camilla hugged her legs close to her chest, resting a cheek on one knee.

"I don't know. He won't tell us anything. But I can hear him and my mommy arguing at night when me and Mario go to sleep. And he always looks really tired…and nervous."

Belphegor wasn't sure what to say. Hitmen weren't particularly gifted in comforting others, so he just rubbed her back affectionately instead. Hopefully it was helping.

The green eyed girl leaned her head on his shoulder, shedding a single tear.

"I don't want to leave. I like coming to the park everyday and playing with everyone. Especially with you." She said, smiling up at him.

Belphegor acted without thinking.

Camilla's eyes widened as the blonde prince pressed an innocent kiss on her lips before pulling back hurriedly, a dark blush staining the visible part of his face.

"I don't want you to leave either. You're the first friend I've ever had." He said, scratching at his neck sheepishly.

Camilla gasped.

"Really? How come?" The prince sighed.

"It's…complicated." Belphegor said as he plucked a lone twig off the ground and drew little circles in the snow with it. He sniffled a bit. Camilla decided to drop it, settling for leaning her head back on the blonde's shoulder.

The two sat in amiable silence for a while.

As the sun finally began to fall below the horizon, a sudden vibration in his pocket made the prince sit up. He dug into his pants pocket, pulling out his sleek flip phone.

_Squ-Squ._Belphegor sighed, before turning to his friend.

"I have to answer this. Hold on." The prince said as he stood up, patting his butt free of snow.

Belphegot anxiously flipped the phone open and hit' answer.'

"Yeah?"

"VVOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIII BRAT WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?" The prince pulled the phone away from his ear with a pained grimace. Camilla stared with comically wide eyes at the phone, which was vibrating from the intensity of Squalo's voice.

"Uhh…is he on speaker?" Belphegor snorted, shaking his head. He outright laughed when the pretty green eyes dilated upon hearing that fact.

"Who is that?"

The prince quickly tried to think of something.

"He's…my-my brother. He's uh…deaf." Belphegor scratched his cheek nervously. If Squalo heard him say that…

When the swordsman's voice returned to a semi-normal decibel, Belphegor brought the phone back to his ear, trying to retain the last bit of Squalo's message, which was basically 'get your ass back to base or your dead.'

"Camilla, it's getting late! Time to head home!" The familiar call of the girl's nanny came from across the park.

"Hey Bel, I have to go home." She said as she too picked herself up off of the ground, searching for her nanny.

"Me too…" Belphegor sighed, rubbing his poor ear after the Squalo abuse it just received. He was in big trouble.

"See you tomorrow?" She asked, small smile curling on her pretty face.

"Yeah I hope so. Shishi~!" He said back, stretching his arms.

"So it's a date then!" She yelled, giggling as she hugged him. Belphegor felt a bit awkward. He had never hugged anyone before. Not even his family, when they were alive.

It felt kind of nice.

"Bye-bye!" Camilla said joyfully, after kissing his hand, as had become an odd custom between the two of them, before jogging down the path to the gate of the park where her nanny and brother were waiting.

Belphegor smiled desolately as he walked to the other exit at the opposite end of the park. He hadn't noticed until now, but Camilla had been wearing the same white outfit she had been wearing when they met.

He couldn't help but think about how from behind, with her coat fluttering about her as she ran, she looked a lot like an angel about to take flight.

* * *

"VOOOOIIII BRAT! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?" Squalo didn't give the prince a chance to even get his other foot in the door before attacking him.

"Did you forget that our assignment is tonight? While you're off doin' whatever the hell it is you do all day-" The swordsman continued, the epitome of wrath.

"I'm sor-so-hah-ah- achoo!" the boy attempted to apologize feebly while sneezing, looking quite pathetic sniffling and rubbing his pink nose free of boogers on his sleeve.

Squalo made a face. Stupid kids and their stupid colds.

_That's what he gets for being out in the freezing fucking snow all week. _The vocal hitman thought to himself.

As the mother hen of the group, Lussuria immediately scooped the blonde up and whisked him off to the infirmary. After some horrid tasting cough medicine, the boy was forced to bed.

"What about the mission?" Belphegor questioned from under a heap of thick blankets as Lussuria tucked him in.

"Oh don't worry about that honey~! We'll handle that. You just get plenty of rest! I'll make you some soup when we get back, alright?" The martial artist said in a motherly tone as he ruffled the blonde tresses affectionately, placing the boy's trademark tiara on the nightstand.

Belphegor nodded his head drowsily as he drifted into unconsciousness.

Lussuria smiled at the young boy lovingly, drawing the regal velvet drapes closed and turning off the lights on the room before closing the door to join the other downstairs.

* * *

Belphegor yawned widely as he sat up in bed, stretching his arms with a gratifying 'pop.' The prince poked his blonde head out the window that was left slightly ajar, smile growing at the mounds of white piled around the courtyard of the base.

_Fresh snowfall!_ He thought excitedly as he flew out of bed and ran into his walk-in closet. The jubilant prince materialized a few minutes later, clad in his thick black parka and boots.

Placing his tiara gingerly upon his head, the young hitman quickly ran out of his room and glided lithely down the stairs, doing his best to be silent. He was still a bit sniffly, and if one of the others caught him out of bed, Lussuria especially, he would be sent right back.

Once outside, the prince made a mad dash for the gates, and sprinted towards the town .

After a long run, Belphegor finally stood outside the park. He smiled, mood relatively chipper as he planted himself in his usual spot and waited for his friend.

A frigid wind blew by, making the prince's teeth chatter. The boy drew the hood of his parka up over his head as he shivered. It had been nearly twenty minutes, and Camilla was no where to be seen.

Belphegor pulled out his phone, impatiently checking the time. His eyebrows furrowed when he saw that it had been almost half an hour already.

_She's usually here by now_. Belphegor thought growing a bit worried. The blonde sat down on a bench, bringing his knees to his chest for warmth, curling his arms around his bent legs. He rested his chin between his knees as he checked the time on his phone again.

An hour passed.

Belphegor still sat, fiddling with the laces of his thick black boots and occasionally looking around for the pigtail wearing girl, expecting a snowball to nail him in the head any minute. None came.

Another hour passed. Then another.

_I wonder if she's sick or something? _The prince thought, feeling troubled by the absence of his friend. He checked his phone again. It had already been over three hours. He had been sick last night, so it was likely that Camilla had also fallen ill.

His eyebrows furrowed again beneath his veil of gold. He would wait a bit longer, just in case.

It was nearly dusk when Belphegor sleepily lifted his head from the bench. The boy had grown tired and curled up on the wooden seat for a cat nap,which turned into a full few hours of sleep.

_Must be that nasty medicine Lussuria gave me_. The prince thought as he rubbed his eyes tiredly. A sudden beeping from his phone woke him right up. The battery was dying.

Belphefor sighed dejectedly. _I guess she's not coming after all._

The prince hopped off of the bench and made his way out of the park and onto the street. He jammed his hands into his pockets, staring at the ground as he walked, feeling quite depressed.

A body suddenly appeared in his path, bumping into him.

"Oh pardon me!" an older woman said apologetically before returning to conversing with her friend. Normally, Belphegor would have downright livid at the woman's nerve at bumping into a prince and simply brushing it off with a half-assed 'pardon me.'

But like the now setting sun, Belphegor's previously good mood was quickly diminishing. He responded with an absent 'whatever,' only having the will to be mildly annoyed.

"Did you here about what happened to the shoemaker down the street?" The woman continued conversing with her friend a the two moved further down the street.

"Oh my, such a tragedy. An entire family, slaughtered. Mister Anoziano was such as kind man, and children were so well behaved." The friend sighed into her hand, tsking at the shame of such an awful event.

At the mention of kids, Belphegor's ears immediately perked up.

"He had kids? I had no idea…." The woman who bumped into him said. Her friend quickly nodded her head.

"Oh yes, Adele, he had two kids, a little boy and girl. Such beautiful children. It's a real shame."

"Who could do such a horrible thing?"

"I heard from the man next door that supposedly, it was some kind of mafia hit. The shoemaker owed someone a lot of money from what I understand."

Belphegor turned back to the two women, eyes widening. It couldn't be.

"It's a terrible place this world is coming to, murdering children over something like money. It makes you cry for humanity. Who were Mister Anoziano's kids, anyway?"

"Oh the little boy and girl with the black hair. Don't you remember? They used to play in the park all the time."

Belphegor's heart sank into his stomach.

_No._

* * *

"Xanxus-sama?" Belphegor stood next to the older teen as the members of the Varia sat around that night playing video games.

The grumpy adolescent looked back at the uncharacteristically crestfallen prince, who was clutching his arm meekly.

"What?"

"A-about the mission…" The boss looked annoyed.

"Yeah, what about it?"

Belphegor bit his slightly trembling lip.

"What was it again?"

Squalo piped in from his spot on the floor.

"We took out that old shoemaker and his family downtown. He owed the Vongola an assload of money and couldn't pay up. Why?"

The prince bit his lip harder, little fists clenched so tightly his nails drew blood.

"Did he have kids?"

Lussuria noticed the tremors racking the boy's body with concern.

"Bel honey, is something wrong?"

The prince repeated his question, this time with more urgency.

"Did he have kids? Tell me!"

Xanxus slapped an irritated hand over his face. His head was hurting and this kid's annoying yapping was not helping at all.

"Yeah he had kids…two of them. Happy now?"

The prince felt the lump in his throat grow rapidly.

"A boy and a girl? Around my age?" He asked, trying to keep his voice from cracking. Squalo growled.

"Voi! What's the matter with you brat? Yeah the motherfucker had kids! A boy and a girl, and guess what, they died too! What's the big deal?" The rain guardian shouted, slamming his controller down as the TV beeped. Of course he had lost the round.

Lussuria punched Squalo on the head.

"Squ~! Can't you see he's distraught over this?"

"Di-did they suffer?" The small blonde boy asked in a voice so quiet the others had to strain their ears to hear him.

"Suffer?" Levi repeated, staring at the knife-wielder oddly. Since when did Prince the Ripper care about anyone's suffering?

"What are you getting at kid?" Xanxus grunted lowly, glaring at the prince.

"Did they die quick? Or did they suffer?" Belphegor asked again, voice shaky.

"Lussuria took them out."

The boy's head whipped to face the gaudy teen. Lussuria sighed, fingering his green fringe as Belphegor walked over to him, looking every bit like a kicked puppy.

"Well?"

"No, Bel, they didn't suffer at all. I couldn't stand the thought of brutally murdering children, so I killed them with a quick jab to the back of the neck. They didn't feel a thing." The martial arts expert told him seriously, running his gloved hand over the blonde head of hair.

A shaky smile made it's way onto the prince's face.

"Oh…okay." He whispered quietly as he let out a shuddered breath.

The older members watched as the prince abruptly turned, and stiffly walked out of the room.

Levi shook his head.

"That kid is seriously fucked up." Squalo nodded in agreement.

Lussuria shot up of his seat on the couch and ran after the boy. He quickly caught up to the now sprinting child in the hallway. The flamboyant man slapped a hand on the boy's trembling shoulders, turning him around to face him.

Thick wet tears rolled down Belphegor's face as he openly sobbed, his breath hitching every so often. His cheeks were red and puffy, and Lussuria imagined that under that mop of hair, his grey eyes were equally swollen.

"Bel…what's wrong?" Lussuria asked, his maternal instincts taking over as he wrapped is arms around the small boy's skinny frame.

The prince's lips trembled as he bit them, trying to silence his sobs. He glanced up at his older teammate with glassy, tear-filled eyes.

"She-she was my friend." He sobbed, rubbing his face with his sleeve, his entire body quivering. Lussuria gasped. What had he done?

"I'm so sorry." He said, quickly pulling the poor child into a hug, holding the small body tightly as Belphegor cried into the crook of his neck, helplessly clutching his shirt. It was all he could do to ease the boy's pain at losing his only friend.

Assassin only keep the company of other assassins. Anyone and everyone else is merely biding their time. It was a harsh reality of being in the mafia and he knew the prince was more aware of that than any of them.

But Lussuria also knew how much it hurt to try and keep hold of their humanity. He pulled the boy tighter, knowing after tonight, the last shred of humanity that Belphegor desperately clung to would, like the pretty green-eyed girl he had befriended, forever be a memory.

* * *

God. I hope I'm not the only one that cried like a baby when I read this over. Yeah I know, I know. Damn S*B, sensitive much? Well yeah, I am.

*Sigh*Anyway, as always, read and review! I really wanna hear your thoughts!


	11. Buon Compleanno

A/N: After like a decade, I have finally updated this story! Hello all, and Welcome back to Phases of Accidia, my personal collection of Bel-centric (for the most part) one-shots.

I was considering posting this as a separate story at first, but in the end, I felt it was better suited for this collection.

Warnings: Language, drinking, implied twincest (it's very mild, I assure you), subject matter and themes.

Written for not only Bel's birthday today, but also Rasiel's. They are twins, after all. This one is set about eight years after the ring Battles, so Bel would be twenty-four. That being said, Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: Sushi*Bomb does not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Let the good times role.

* * *

XI. Buon Compleanno, Mio Caro Gemello Malvagio

* * *

Belphegor scowled as he zipped his coat up higher, shivering slightly. He wondered absently why it was so bloody cold in this god-forsaken cemetery; although in the back of his mind, he was sure he knew the answer. The prince rubbed his arm rapidly, trying in vain to warm himself while he glared down at the stone slab in the ground.

"You know, for such an obnoxious dick, your tombstone sure is plain. Ushishi~!" Belphegor pointed out, smirking. The blonde prince pulled a half-empty bottle of vodka out of his coat, watching the clear liquid swirl around in the translucent bottle before unscrewing the cap and taking a long swig. He wiped his face with his sleeve unceremoniously, while crouching down to sit on his haunches with his head cradled in one of his wiry hands. He looked from the bottle, to the grave, and back to the bottle again, scrunching his lips in contemplation.

"Want some? I doubt you'd like it though, seeing as how you didn't live long enough to get to actually try it. It's sort of an acquired taste, you know."

"_And whose fault is that?"_ Belphegor looked up to see his brother nestled arrogantly on top of the tombstone, arms crossed and looking annoyingly smug. Underneath his veil of golden blonde hair, cool grey eyes widened in surprise.

"Ushishi~! What the fuck're you doing up there, Ras? Did they throw you out of Hell or something?" The older twin chuckled.

"_What, I can't occasionally come to the world of the living? Especially to see my drunken failure of a brother, who finally gathered up enough courage to come here and see me after almost fifteen years?" _Belphegor's eyes narrowed, his trademark smile taking on a hard edge.

"I didn't come all the way from Italy just to see you, you know. I happened to be in town, so I figured I'd stop by to visit for old time's sake. It _is_ our birthday today, after all. And I'm not drunk, assface."

"_Shashasha! Well, if I'm an assface, you are too. And I wasn't aware cold-blooded murderers could actually feel the need to pay respect to their victims."_ The older twin smiled condescendingly.

Rasiel's smirk turned vicious when the bottle Belphegor had been holding shattered violently against his tombstone. Even after all this time, it was still so embarrassingly easy to goad his little brother into an argument.

"You're no victim. You were nothing but a monster." The Varia storm commander seethed, voice barely above a whisper. The older twin scoffed.

"_Isn't that a bit hypocritical of you Bel? I mean, if my memory serves me right, you were a twisted little bastard in your own right, weren't you?"_

"Not at first. But being related to someone like you tends to change people over time. Even then, I've always considered myself the lesser of two evils." Belphegor bit back.

Rasiel stood up from the stone slab, walking slowly over to his younger twin and crouched down in front of him. He cocked his head to one side, suddenly appearing quite intrigued by something. Belphegor tensed at the increase in proximity.

"Get the hell away from me."

The elder ignored him, reaching up to cradle Belphegor's smooth face in his cold, clammy hand. He pushed his lengthy bangs aside in a disgustingly fallacious display of affection, revealing his brother's frigid achromatic glare. The younger wrenched his face free of the unwelcomed touch.

"Stop it!"

Rasiel chuckled, grin growing impossibly wide.

"_What's the matter, Bel? I'm not allowed to be affectionate to my dearest little brother? As inferior as you are, you're still beautiful to me." _

Belphegor sneered.

"We have very different definitions of the word affection, Rasiel. That's not the way brothers should see each other." The dead twin laughed out loud.

"_I really don't believe you. You miss me, don't you? Isn't that why you decided to pop in for a visit?" _

Belphegot shook his head vehemently.

"_N__o? So, why_ are_ you here then? Could it be that you feel…guilty, about killing me? And what of our poor mother and father? They didn't deserve what you did to them either. Shashasha!" _

"Che…I'm not sorry. You more than deserved it, and so did they. Mother and father were both fools. They just let you run rampant, even when I told them about the things you used to do to me. They refused to see you for what you really were, so in the end, they had to die too."

Rasiel snickered maliciously, dark gaze sharp underneath his straight bangs, and that snicker soon erupted into full-blown guffaws.

"_SHASHASHASHA! Liar! You killed us because you couldn't take the fact that I was goingto be King, and you weren't! You were always jealous of me! Not that I can blame you, of course. It must be unbearably depressing to be inferior to someone in every way possible."_ Belphegor shook his head.

"I was never jealous of you. In fact, I kinda felt sorry for you. I'm the only one who saw you cracking under the pressure."

"_Oh spare me! You're here because you want to beg for forgiveness, aren't you? Well, fortunately for you, as King, I am inclined to forgive the crimes of my only beloved brother."_

Belphegor chuckled bitterly.

"You can't forgive me, because I'm not sorry for killing you, nor will I ever be. And you can't be king if you're dead, stupid."

Rasiel laughter ceased abruptly. The older twin frowned.

"_Again, whose fault is that, Brother?"_

Belphegor sighed, as he let himself fall back on his butt and stretched one of his legs out in front of him. He rested his chin in his palm, staring up at his brother.

"Ushishi~! Don't you go guilt-tripping me. I did you a favor. We may have hated each other, but we're still family. Killing you was probably the nicest thing I could have ever done for you."

"_So you killed me because you cared about me? How noble of you_." Rasiel quipped sardonically, settling himself down on the ground in front of his brother. Belphegor simpered.

"I wouldn't call it caring, exactly. And to be perfectly frank, you were basically dead when the royal court anounced you as the heir to the throne. You started slipping after that. By the time I decided to kill you, you weren't even fit to live, much less rule a kingdom anymore."

"_Who are you to decide who's fit to live or not? I was the one supposed to be King, not you!"_ Rasiel snapped at the younger twin. Belphegor shrugged.

"I can see that even in death, that promise of power still holds so much influence over you. You're not a God, Rasiel. And neither am I. At that point, it had nothing to do with being King; I never even cared about that in the first place,-"

Rasiel growled.

"_Liar! You wanted me gone so you'd be next in line!"_ Belphegor's steely glare narrowed into tiny slits.

"You were out of your fucking mind! You would have killed me eventually if I hadn't done you in first!" The younger twin shouted back.

"I'm not lying. I didn't want to be King anyway. I still don't. The fact of the matter is, you claim that all that time, I was jealous of you. But you know what? I think it was the other way around."

Rasiel started.

Belphegor's frown morphed into a sinister grin as he leaned forward and gripped his brother's head in his gloved hands and pulled him so that their faces were inches apart.

"Ushishi~! You weren't strong enough to deal with the pressure mother and father were putting on you, and so, like a piece of fine china, you fell over the edge and shattered into a million little pieces."

"Liar-" Belphegor anchored the deceased twin's face in his vice-like grip, fingertips digging into the cold flesh.

"And, like the wonderful brother and prince that I am, I simply waited until your rotting, dilapidated mind reached critical condition and then, relieved you of all of your worries."

Underneath that veil of gold, Rasiel's eyes narrowed.

"So, you helped me…by not only killing me, but also mother and father. That's a rather over-zealous way of fixing the problem, don't you think?"

Belphegor's grin widened.

"Well, you said it yourself. I'm a pretty twisted bastard in my own right."

"Drunken-prince sempai…who the heck are you talking to?"

Belphegor blinked.

Fran was standing behind his brother's tombstone, watching him with his usual deadpanned stare. The prince looked around, his hands still in the air, fingers hooked from where he had been gripping Rasiel's face. Only, his brother was no longer there. He sighed, suddenly feeling very tired as he stood up and dusted himself off.

"No one. Come on, let's get the fuck outta here. This place is giving me the creeps."

As the two vacated the opulent cemetery, Belphegor looked back over his shoulder, giving the his brother's grave a bittersweet smile.

_Rasiel, it really doesn't matter if I feel any kind of remorse for that night or not. I had already made up my mind about killing you. Mother and father were only an afterthought. But I still wish that you had been stronger. Maybe things wouldn't have turned out this way. But whatever. Happy Birthday._

* * *

The two Varia members entered the mansion just after dark, immediately dumping their meager pile of luggage in the hands of a couple of the grunts, and reported the success of their mission to Xanxus.

Afterward, Fran dissappeared into the recesses of his bedroom, and Belphegor made a bee-line for the kitchen, on the hunt for another bottle of vodka he knew he had stashed somewhere in the refrigerator. As he entered the room, he caught sight of Lussuria bustling about, humming happily to himself.

"Oh Bel honey, you're back! I have a surprise for you! Come! Come, sit~!" The flamboyant martial artist shouted giddily, ushering the younger assassin further into the kitchen. Belphegor perched himself up on the counter, folding his legs and resting his head on his knees. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to grab his booze, abscond to his room, and piss the night away. Lussuria picked up a delicate porcelain tray off of the marble island and practically skipped over to the prince in unbridled excitement.

"What is it?" Belphegor asked, even though it was obvious what it was. Lussuria eagerly pulled the lid off, revealing a rather fancifully prepared cupcake with one lone candle stick up out of the middle of the light colored frosting. He quickly lit it, smiling pleasantly.

"Happy Birthday Bel! I made you your favorite flavor!" The gaudy assassin pushed the tray closer, allowing Belphegor to gingerly scoop up the extravagantly prepared desert in his trembling hands.

There was a sudden commotion upstairs.

"Oh bother, it sounds like Squ and Xanxus-sama are arguing again. I'd better go mediate. Happy Birthday, hun! Enjoy!"

"Hey, Lussuria?" The blonde started as the older man made his way to the exit. Lussuria turned back, a warm smile on his tanned face.

"What is it, sweetie?" Belphegor smiled, admiring the small cake with a melancholy stare.

"Have you ever seen a ghost?" Lussuria cocked his head to the side, head cradled in his manicured hand pensively.

"Can't say that I have. Why do you ask?" Belphegor looked up from the dessert, eyes glassy under his curtain of golden locks. The prince just shook his head.

"I,- nothing. It's nothing. I thought I saw one today, so I was just curious."

Lussuria stared at him oddly for a few minutes before shrugging, seemingly accepting the ripper's odd answer.

"Oh okay then, enjoy the cake!" And with that, Lussuria was out the door, leaving the prince alone sitting up on the counter.

Which in the end, was probably for the better. Belphegor was more than certain Lussuria wouldn't want to see him mashing his face into the delectable, one of a kind creation he had spent all day making just for him and screaming like a bat out of hell, and his tiara falling to the floor pathetically as he sobbed silently with bits of cake and frosting all over his face and hair.

* * *

I am such a sucker for vulnerability, jeewiz. But this one's pretty weird, I'm not gonna lie. But I typed it at like three in the morning, so I guess it's justifiable. What did you think? Read and review please!

Oh, and in case anyone's curious, the title translates to Happy Birthday, my Dearest Evil Twin. I think that pretty much sums up the perspectives of both Bel and Rasiel when it comes to each other. Yeah.

Happy B-day you crazy, homicidal twins!


	12. Boogeyman

A/N: Hey peeps. Sushi*Bomb here with the REAL chapter 12 of Phases of Accidia.

So first things first, only a select few of you know, I recently injured my thumb, by which I mean I slammed the shit out of it in my car door a couple of weeks ago. I have been in so much pain, it's hard to believe. My thumb was swollen and…ugh it was just awful. As you can imagine, I haven't exactly been able to do much typing lol But thankfully, I can finally move it again, although the nail is still kinda sore (I slammed it right on the part where the nail grows D: )

Second… I'm amazed at how popular 'Will that be Paper or Plastic' was. Apparently I should write way more stories about the Varia doing regular, everyday things.

Whatever. Anyway, so yeah this chapter is based on a picture I saw on tumblr last night. It was an image captured in the Amityville house after the Lutz Family moved out. It was a picture of the stairwell. If you look in the left of the stairs, there is a kid looking over the railing directly at the camera. It was specifically noted that there weren't any kids in the house at the time the picture was taken. *Shudder* Creepiest picture ever. This story just kinda materialized (no ghost puns intended) after I saw that picture. If you wanna see it, just go look at my homepage. It's still pretty recent, so it shouldn't take you too long to scroll through and find it if you really wanna see it.

Also, the last two chapters have been totally angsterrific, so I wanted to write something cute, and as creepy as it is, this chapter is also disgustingly cute. At least to me it is. Just read it.

I hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: Sushi*Bomb does not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn. I don't have a witty joke today. I don't have anything. Waaaahh…

* * *

XII. Boogeyman

* * *

Squalo sighed blissfully to himself as he turned the tap off in the shower. Of all the showers he'd ever taken, that had to have been the most satisfying and relaxing one he'd ever had. He slid one of the shower doors open, the steam obscuring his vision somewhat, leaving him to blindly grope around for the towel he had absently slung on the towel rack before getting in. After several failed swipes, he finally managed to grab the fluffly white cloth and wrapped it around his slim hips.

The Varia rain guardian stretched lightly, yawning loudly as he carefully stepped out onto the tiled bathroom floor, lest he slip and crack something important in his semi-dazed state. He had just returned from a particularly difficult mission, and he was really feeling the strain of the day's events on his young body. He was yawning every few minutes, and could barely keep his cobalt eyes open for more than a couple seconds at a time. Every muscle in his body was screaming for the plush, luxuriously indulging softness of his king sized bed and goose feather pillows.

In short, he was bloody tired.

After drying himself off and brushing his teeth, the silver-haired youth literally drug himself over to his dresser, where he absently plucked a pair of black boxers out of the bottom drawer and slipped them on. He took a good look at himself in the large dresser mirror and, despite his exhaustion, smirked arrogantly at his reflection. He was a good looking son of a bitch, with his slim, toned torso, and lithe arms, rippling with firm muscle developed from years of swinging a sword. Not to mention his hair had grown out quite a bit since he made that promise to Xanxus. It was currently a little past his shoulders, now that he really looked at it.

He smiled tiredly as he turned to his bed and, with an overwhelming sense of gratefulness, fell face-first onto the soft, cream colored duvet draped elegantly across his matress. He quickly replaced it atop his bare torso and curled it about himself before sighing in utter exhaustion into his favorite pillow.

He was out in a matter of minutes.

* * *

"Squalo…"

The swordsman didn't budge. Bel pouted slightly, clutching his stuffed bunny closer to his small chest.

"…Hey, Squalo…" he whispered again, tapping the older assassin's arm. Still nothing. Belphegor started smacking his back frantically.

"Squalo!" He nearly shouted. To his relief, the silver-haired teen began to stir. The small blonde smiled, poking the swordsman's arm sharply to wake him up before he drifted back off into dreamland.

He heard a very annoyed growl from under the covers. A moment later, a very irritated looking face poked out from under the thick duvet, steely eyes narrowed.

"You better have a DAMN good reason for waking me up at one in the morning, runt. Otherwise, you're fucking dead." The rain guardian hissed out through clenched teeth. Belphegor bit his lip, nodding his head fervently. Squalo came up to rest on his elbow.

"Well?"

"There's a monster in my closet."

Squalo's eyes opened fully.

"_Excuse_ me?"

The small blonde clutched his stuffed animal so tightly to him Squalo was sure it's eyes (which were sewn back in rather sloppily after the prince sadistically tore them out once) were going to pop off.

"It's the boogeyman! He's waiting 'til I go to sleep so he can eat me!" The prince whined worriedly, his tiny, eight-year old body shivering in fear. Squalo couldn't help but chuckle, despite himself.

"The boogeyman, huh?"

The ripper prince nodded so hard Squalo was certain his head was going to snap right off. The boy grabbed Squalo's arm, trying desperately to pull him out of bed.

"Come on!" The little boy shouted, tugging frantically. Squalo growled, smacking the annoying little hands away. He was not in the mood to deal with little kids and their irrational fears.

"The boogeyman isn't real you little shit. Now go back to your room and go the fuck to sleep. You're a goddamn hitman for fuck's sake. Grow up." He snapped before rolling over and snuggling appreciatively into his pillow. He felt a weight on his bed suddenly.

"But Squ, I can hear him in there." The prince whispered frightfully into his ear. Squalo felt his eye twitch involuntarily. He was **really** not in the mood for this.

"Go to Mammon then."

"Mammon's not home."

Squalo twitched. The mist illusionist was never around when he needed to be.

"Why don't you go tell Lussuria then? He'll be more than happy to kill your 'boogeyman' for you. Leave me the hell alone!" The rain guardian snarled. Belphegor made a pained noise as he latched onto Squalo's arm, ramming his little face into the taut shoulder.

"Lussuria's not here either, he's out on a mission. Please Squalo! I'm so scared! Please come kill it so I can go to sleep!" The prince shouted loudly in near hysterics.

Squalo's jaw tightened. This fucking kid…

"Vooooiiii! Look brat, you have three seconds to get off my bed and get the fuck outta my room. If you're still here when I get to one, your head's gonna be on a spike in the morning."

"But Squa-"

"THREE."

"He's in there! I can-"

"TWO."

"Squalo!"

"ONE! Uh- wha?" The silver-haired swordsman felt his irritation leave him momentarily when he felt an unfamiliar wetness on his bare shoulder where Bel had his face pressed into, desperately begging. He heard sniffles. The older hitman's eyes widen slightly in disbelief. Was he?

"Bel… are you…crying?" The small assassin looked up at him through a curtain of blonde hair. Squalo could see two thin rivulets of tears running down the boy's pale cheeks. Squalo couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Belphegor may have been a bratty, spoiled prince, but he certainly knew better than to bother anyone when they were sleeping, especially him. Whatever he heard in his room had scared him enough to risk potential injury and come seek him out.

The swordsman noticed the boy's trembling hands and silent hiccups. In the moonlight, Bel's face was even paler than normal, and he was breathing erratically. Squalo's eyes widened. He wasn't just scared, was he? He was completely terrified.

Belphegor whimpered quietly, still tugging pathetically at his arm. Squalo, for all of his justifiable exhaustion and irritation, just couldn't find it in himself to be angry at the small blonde prince. Even though the little boy was a demon child ninety-nine percent of the time, seeing him like this, whimpering and sniffling quietly with tears running down his face, clutching his teddy like it was his lifeline in his pajamas that were at least three sizes too big, made Squalo completely deflate. He supposed that even psychotic, mutant children like Prince the Ripper were scared of silly things like monsters in their closet.

The swordsman ran a tired hand down his face. The sooner he dealt with this, the sooner the annoying prince would leave him alone, and then he could go back to sleep. He sighed in resignation.

"If I go look, will you promise to leave me alone?"

The petite royal looked up from the duvet, rubbing his nose with his sleeve.

"Yeah…" He sniffled dejectedly, nodding slightly. That little 'yeah' made the rain guardian's heart sink. This was a side of Bel he was certain not even the boy's own parents had even seen. Squalo honestly couldn't remember anything from when he was eight-years old, but he was pretty sure he had probably annoyed his parents at night with fears of boogeymen under his bed or in his closet. He sighed again, grimacing to himself.

"Fine. Come on." He snapped tiredly as he clambered off of the bed and hastily made for the door, Belphegor in tow. The two wandered the dark halls of the Varia mansion, the moonlight illuminating their path toward the spiral staircase at the end of the hall that led to the second floor of the east wing, where the prince's room was located. Squalo looked down to his right. The small boy was running slightly to keep up with his long strides, still clinging tightly to his dilapidated stuffed rabbit.

The swordsman rolled his eyes as he stopped in his tracks and stared down at his younger comrade. Belphegor looked up at him in confusion as Squalo came closer and, without any warning, scooped the boy of the ground and settled the petite child on his hip.

"Better?" He asked quietly. Belphegor just nodded silently, grateful that he didn't have to run after the older assassin just to keep up anymore. His little legs were aching quite painfully already. With the prince balanced on his hip, the older hitman made the rest of the journey to Belphegor's bedroom a lot quicker.

After a few minutes, the pair were outside the large, ornate wooden doors of the ripper's bedroom. Squalo turned the knob slowly, trying to stifle a snort when he felt Bel tense, his skinny little arms tightening around his neck fearfully.

"Relax runt, I'm here." Squalo said as he confidently strode into the dark room and turned on the light before taking a look around as he set the younger assassin back down on the ground. The blonde immediately hid behind his leg, a set of his trademark knives clutched in between his fingers defensively. Squalo shook his head exasperatedly at the younger boy's antics as he squinted his eyes and glanced around the spacious room, searching for the closet.

As usual, the plush, off -white carpet was littered with clothes, toys and gadgets, as well as several of the prince's odd-looking daggers, which Squalo made certain to step over, lest he impale one of his socked feet on one.

His cobalt gaze finally settled on the door of the walk-in closet across from the prince's bed. Squalo's eyes widened exponentially. The door, which was slightly ajar, was completely riddled with Bel's knives.

**Hundreds **of them.

But what freaked Squalo out the most was that, amidst the strange daggers, he could just make out an outline of a body. And it didn't really look too human.

_Whoa. That is some seriously creepy shit._ He thought to himself as he glanced down at the blonde boy, who was hiding behind his leg anxiously and clutching at the material of his boxers in a tiny, trembling fist, knives at the ready in the other hand. He was staring in the direction of the door.

Nonetheless, Squalo had made the trek all the way over here to prove a point, and damn it, he was not gonna look like a coward in front of his eight- year old comrade.

"You stay right here. I'll go look." He said authoritatively. The boy nodded silently, still gripping 'Frankenbunny' incomrehensibly tight against his scrawny little torso. Squalo steeled himself and marched toward the door, which was still swinging slightly. The swordsman suppressed as shudder.

No wonder Bel was so scared. His room was creepy as all hell on its own, nevermind him seeing things. Squalo honestly couldn't blame the ripper prince. _He_ was having a hard time keeping his nerves in check as it was. He couldn't imagine **sleeping **in here.

He placed his hand on the knob of the door and, with a gulp, swiftly pulled it open.

As expected, it was empty of any paranormal entities. Squalo sighed in relief as he turned to the blonde with a smirk.

"See? Empty."

Belphegor frowned.

Squalo closed the door and walked back to the prince and crouched down to eye-level with the blonde.

"The boogeyman isn't real, alright? Now go to sleep. I'm tired as fuck." To reiterate his point, the silverette yawned widely as he stood up and made to leave back to his room. He was clear out the door and in the hallway when he heard a small sniffle.

The Varia commander's shoulders sagged slightly. The part of him that cared, the teeny, tiny fraction of his being that _kinda _gave a damn went out to the petite royal. Belphegor wasn't normally afraid of anything, so for him to be reacting like this…

Squalo sighed as he backtracked to the doorway and poked his head in.

Belphegor was standing exactly where he had left him. He was still staring hard in the direction of the closet door, clutching both his knives and Frankenbunny tightly.

"Voi, brat." He started as he walked back into the room. The blonde turned slowly away from the door to look up at him. Squalo could see fresh streams of tears rolling down the boy's ashen cheeks from underneath his veil of gold.

The swordsman really wanted to smack himself. He could not believe the words that were about to come out of his mouth.

"Do you wanna sleep in my bed tonight?" The slasher prince started slightly.

"…Really?" The small blonde asked almost timidly, looking up at him with his head cocked to the side in confusion. Superbia Squalo never went out of his way to do something nice for anybody.

The swordsman nodded slowly, looking a little shocked himself.

"Yeah really. Your room is creepy as fuck. I can't really blame you for being a little chicken shit." He said with a snort. Belphegor pouted.

"It's not funny, Squalo. I saw it." He murmured from behind Frankenbunny's precariously stitched head. Nonetheless, the elite hitman tucked his knives away and walked over to Squalo. The two made the journey back to Squalo's room in comfortable silence, Squalo making sure to walk a bit slower so the tired prince could keep up with him. He was not going to carry him all the way to his room. Bel may have been small for his age, but an eight year old boy is an eight year old boy. Squalo was strong, but he didn't feel like carrying a fifty-something pound child across the mansion. No way.

A few minutes later, the two were back at the rain guardian's bedroom. Squalo was settling himself back into his spot on the left side of the bed against the wall. Bel hesitantly crawled up on the bed next to him, but made no attempt to lay down. He was watching Squalo intently.

"What?" The swordsman asked tiredly. It was already nearly two o'clock, and he desperately wanted to sleep. Belphegor bit his lip anxiously as he scooted further onto the bed, still clutching his stuffed animal as if it would keep him safe.

"I don't wanna sleep by the edge." He whispered so quietly Squalo had to strain to hear him.

"What?"

Belphegor looked fearfully over his tiny shoulder.

"The boogeyman can come and snatch me up if I sleep on the edge. He won't hurt you though." He said, rubbing his face in his sleeve tiredly.

Squalo rolled his eyes before shifting over to the outside part of the bed and laid back down. Belphegor stood up on the bed and stepped over him, before laying down between his older comrade and the wall. The kid could sleep where ever the hell he wanted, as long as Squalo could rest in peace.

"Whatever. Just go the fuck to sleep already." He snapped exhaustedly as he fluffed up his favorite pillow and buried his face in it, before suddenly lifting his head again to glare at the small blonde.

"And not a peep." He said as an afterthought before promptly re-mashing his face into the cool surface of the pillow.

"'Kay." The ripper whispered silently as he settled under the cool duvet and immediately snuggled against Squalo's back, curling himself into a ball.

"Voooiii, brat. I ain't your fuckin' mama." The swordsman growled lowly as he rolled over to face the younger assassin and push him off. But as he turned, he realized that the prince was just as tired as he was. The boy was fast asleep already.

For the second time that night, Squalo drug his hand down his face in annoyance. This time however, it was more at himself than at the blonde prince sleeping so peacefully against his torso. Squalo just couldn't find it in himself to shove the kid away. Bel had had a rough night too; maybe even more so than he, depending on how you look at it. Squalo sighed in resignation as he settled back down into a comfortable position, doing his best not to disturb his 'guest,' who pressed himself further into the warmth of Squalo's body. Despite himself, the swordsman allowed a tiny smile to emerge on his exhausted face.

It was at times like this, when Belphegor wasn't being a psychotic little demon that had lost one too many marbles, when he wasn't being obnoxious, irritating, or annoying, when he wasn't leaving dead animals in his room to gross him out, when he wasn't being an insufferably spoiled brat who felt he was entitled to whatever he wanted, when he wasn't throwing tantrums because he didn't get his way,when he wasn't being a snarky little know -it -all who always had to have the last word, when he wasn't pretending to be a grown up, when he wasn't the twisted, calculating killer they all knew he was…

He was actually…kind of pleasant.

And, Squalo thought as he watched the boy curl into himself, as if to protect his core from the monster he was certain was hiding in his closet, just this once; he would let Bel be a normal kid. Normal kids are afraid of monsters in their closets and stuff like that, right?

Underneath the demented persona of Prince the Ripper, there was just Bel. And he was still a kid. And he was still human.

Besides. By the near perfect outline on the prince's closet door, it was clear this wasn't a trick of the kid's rather overactive imagination. Squalo groaned as he suppressed another involuntary shiver.

He'd look up a priest in the morning.

* * *

I hope you guys thought that was cute too. I don't wanna be the only loser who was like D'AWWW Squalo is so nice lol

Before anyone says so, I know this chapter is kinda OOC, but really. It's freaking eight-year-old Bel. I'm sorry. Children are meant to be cute. Even the crazy, borderline demonic psychopaths like Prince the Ripper.

So what did you all think? Please please please leave me a review! Or the boogeyman is gonna omnomnom on your soul.

Sushi*Bomb xoxoxo


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